The Devil You Know
by MaverikFlame
Summary: A series of one-shots, mostly humorous, showing the evolution of Loki's relationship with Tony Stark. Sequel to Nine Lives.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N:_ And so it begins again.

This fic will be a series of one-shots following the progression of Tony and Loki's relationship. Yes, there will be slash but nothing too explicit. This is meant as a continuation of _Nine Lives_, which you can also find on this site, but all you really need to know is that Tony and Loki have just started... dating? Screwing? I don't know how to categorize it. But they're officially together and stuff.

Oh, and Loki used to be Tony's cat. That was... before they started screwing. Otherwise that would just be... ew.

Then again, this is Loki. And Tony, so. Oh, heavens, I need to end this train of thought.

Story time. Yes.

* * *

><p><strong>Midnight Snack<strong>

Tuna.

Yes. Loki decided he was craving tuna.

He smothered a yawn as he padded across the kitchen floor, bare feet slapping on cold tile, and swept his gaze over the rows of cabinetry. He grinned to himself as he extricated his quarry from the bottom cabinet.

Loki forewent finding a can opener and popped the lid with magic, leaning his hip against the counter. Licking the juices along the cover, Loki gazed about at the house he had come to know well these past few weeks. Sleek, modern furniture Loki was doing his best to dishevel and large picture windows framed the world beyond.

Loki found himself dangerously close to calling it "home" instead of "Stark's mansion".

The tuna cover flopped to the counter with a metal _clink,_and Loki dug into the main course with a spoon whisked from the nearest drawer. He preferred this time of night, just before dawn when all the world was still and he felt like the only person awake and alive. It was a heady feeling, being the only source of motion in such stillness.

But that was shot to Hell when footsteps and a pair of voices floated down the hall. A door slammed, and the steps grew closer.

Loki stiffened, only to decide that he had no reason to, and went back to his tuna.

The footsteps were drawing nearer, and Loki knew that they were following the lights on in the kitchen. So much like flies, these humans.

Loki perked his ears at the sound of voices.

"See?" A man's voice, gruff. Hawkeye's, he believed. "Told you someone would still be up. I'll bet you fifty bucks it's Tony."

"Ugh. Not taking that bet." A female voice, with the tiniest Russian lilt. Hello, Black Widow. "Probably with some new tramp, with his pants down around his ankles."

Loki smiled to himself and leaned more comfortably against the counter. He toyed with the idea of changing his shape to match Tony's, only to decide that, for once, being himself would be more fun.

He had been wondering where these two had been the past few weeks.

Finally a pair of familiar, black-clad figures passed under the kitchen archway, all slouching steps and tired smiles. Then Natasha spotted him, freezing like a deer in headlights before grabbing Clint by the elbow and _tugging_. Clint grunted and pulled to a stop, giving her a questioning look before following her line of sight. He started and cursed, immediately reaching for his bow with half his usual grace. Natasha fell into a battle stance.

Loki smiled and continued eating his tuna.

"Good morning," he said cheerily. "Would you like some tuna?"

"Jarvis, sound the intruder alarm," Clint said, staring down his bow.

"It's alright, Jarvis," Loki said blithely. "There's no need. Though perhaps you should wake Tony. Also, add tuna to the shopping list."

"Yes, sir," answered Jarvis' computerized voice.

"_What_?" Clint sputtered, glaring up at the air around them. "Don't take orders from _him_! He's the enemy! Now sound the frigging alarm!"

"Language, sir," Jarvis said disapprovingly. "And I see no intruder, here."

"Loki, what did you do?" Natasha said in a voice menacingly soft. Her eyes threatened violence.

"Oh, I doubt it matters what I tell you," Loki sighed. "You are unlikely to believe it. For the record, I'm here in a friendly capacity."

"Forgive me if I don't believe that," Natasha muttered.

"I just told you you wouldn't, did I not?"

A new set of footsteps, running down the hall. Loki tried not to visibly perk up when he recognized Tony's tread.

"Hey, guys," Tony panted as he juddered to a halt in the kitchen doorway. "What's up?" Then the scene before him seemed to penetrate his sleep-fogged brain. His eyes widened. "Oh."

Loki discarded his tuna and sauntered over to Tony's side.

"Stay back!" Clint growled, tightening his grip on his bow. "Tony, you might want to grab your armor."

"Uh, yeah, about that." Tony nervously shuffled from foot to foot and scratched behind his ear. "Loki's not – I mean. I sort of invited him over."

Loki looped an arm around Tony's waist and tilted his head to rest on Tony's shoulder. He gave Clint and Natasha a sideways glance and smirk.

Clint lowered his bow half an inch, eyes going round like saucers. He and Natasha exchanged partly horrified looks.

"Okay," Clint said slowly, still staring at Loki and Tony but turning his head slightly to address Natasha. "Either Tony's lost a few dozen IQ points while we were gone, or Loki has cast some sort of spell on him."

"My money's on the latter."

"Mine, too."

Loki rolled his eyes. Next to him, Tony looked offended.

"Ex_cuse_ me," he said. "But neither has happened here. If Loki had been working magic on me, don't you think Jarvis would have picked up on it and called you guys? Or how about Steve and Thor? They've been here, you know."

"Actually, sir," Jarvis primly cut in, "Loki _has _been using some magic on – "

"Not _that_ magic!" Tony all but squeaked, waving his arms in an abortive gesture. His face turned tomato red. "I meant violent or manipulative magic. Very different from... _that_."

Loki hid a chuckle behind his hand. Clint looked like he was going to be ill.

"Look," Loki laughed. "I will leave, if it – "

"No," Tony said sharply. Loki arced an eyebrow at him, and Tony offered a sheepish smile in response. "No, you shouldn't have to. We were gonna have to have this talk at some point, so. Yeah. Stay?"

Loki heaved a great sigh as though greatly put-upon. "If you insist," he answered, gently cupping Tony's jaw.

"Okay," Clint said in a strangled voice. "Clearly we got off the jet after landing in Bizzarro World."

Natasha opened her mouth as though to say something. Instead her jaw just hung there for a while.

Tony wrapped an arm around Loki's shoulders. "Okay, why don't we all sit down and talk about this, huh?"

* * *

><p>The vaguely horrified expression hadn't left Clint's face, but at least he had finally put down his bow. Within reach, of course. "You're dating Loki," he said.<p>

"Yep."

"You're... dating _Loki_.

Tony nodded. "Yeah," he said slowly. "That's what I just said."

Clint let out a rather colorful stream of curses. Loki lounged on couch with his feet in Tony's lap and listened.

"We're in Afghanistan for a month," Natasha said wearily, "and this is what we come back to." She muttered something in Russian. "Really, I should know better than to leave you here alone."

Clint mumbled something in agreement, crossed his arms across his chest and scowled. "So," he griped, "what're you going to get him on Valentine's Day, anyway? A bouquet of dead babies?"

"Clint!" Tony hissed. "He's a mother!"

Clint did not seem to know how to respond to that.

Loki chuckled and poked Tony's stomach with his big toe. "Your friends are handling this better than I expected." He paused to consider Clint's words. "But what is this 'Valentine's Day' you speak of?"

"Uh," Tony mumbled with his usual eloquence. He put a hand on Loki's foot and started rubbing small circles along the arch without even realizing it. Loki sank back into the cushions and all but purred. "It's this day where couples celebrate their relationships, yada yada. Lots of mushy stuff, really. S'been a while since I've even had to celebrate it."

Loki mulled over these words. "I... see," he murmured. "And how do these couples 'celebrate their relationships'?"

Tony looked at Clint with a "help me" expression. Clint held up both hands palm out in a "you're on your own" gesture.

"Well," Tony explained, shifting uncomfortably, "sometimes they give each other flowers or chocolates or cards or just... something. I dunno." Then his eyes lit up. "Oh, and there's sex. Lots of it."

"Sex," Loki echoed.

"Yeah, yeah," Tony insisted, warming up to his "explanation". "Like, _tons_ of sex. It's actually a law, you know. You must have marathon sex on Valentine's Day."

Behind Tony, a voice gravelly with sleep said, "I'm leaving the room now."

Tony started and glanced over the back of the couch in time to see Thor's retreating back. "Sorry, Thor!" he called.

Loki leaned back and closed his eyes, still smirking. "I'll be sure to clear my schedule," he said. "When is it?"

"Like, ten months from now," Tony said. "February tenth."

"Fourteenth," Clint corrected.

"Whatever."

Loki opened his eyes and frowned. "My goodness," he said. "That's soon."

Tony blinked down at the green-eyed god. "It's a once a year thing, Loki."

"Oh," Loki mumbled. "Wait, you do this celebratory thing once a year? Can't you just do it once every century and call it a day?"

"By 'do it' I hope you mean the celebrating. Like, _literally _the celebrating."

"I'm still sore from our last round of the _other_ kind of celebrating, so please."

Clint and Natasha rose from their couch. "Leaving the room now, too," Clint informed them. The two retreated in the same direction as Thor. "Hey, Thor," Clint called. "Got any brain bleach?"

Tony looked down at Loki, who stared back at him with eyes glinting with mischief. "Still sore, huh?" he asked. There was a hint of disappointment in his voice.

Loki's smirk curled higher. "Not _that_ sore," he answered. One foot bent to stroke up and down Tony's thigh. Tony visibly swallowed before turning back to the god with dark eyes.

"Bedroom?"

"Oh gods, yes."

* * *

><p><strong>Footnote:<strong> That's right. The opening sentence of this fic was "Tuna." Haaaaaaa...

Oh, and for those of you who don't read _Like Poison_, I am now MaverikLoki on tumblr. _Come say hi!_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: _It's a lot easier to write this stuff when you're not worried about little things like plots. xD

* * *

><p><strong>Past Tense<strong>

Steve closed his eyes for a beat longer than a normal blink. "O-okay," he said, bringing up a hand to wipe over his face. "You and Loki. _You_... and _Loki_." As though saying it with different inflection somehow made the information easier to digest. Another long blink, this time accompanied by a head shake. "I mean, I knew you guys were hanging out, but – this is..." Steve gestured incoherently as his words petered out.

Tony smiled and sipped at his coffee. "What can I say? Not even the gods can resist me!" Tony was finding it hard not to smirk like a jackass.

Steve grimaced. "I'm sorry," he sighed, offering Tony a cringing, guilty look. "I just – well, I didn't know you swung that way, is all."

Tony shrugged and leaned back into a slouch. "Meh," he replied. "I usually swing towards the ladies, but sometimes the breeze pulls me in the other direction." He waggled his eyebrows at Steve, which earned him another grimace from the Captain. "I mean, there was this one time, with my roommate in college – "

"Okay!" Steve interrupted shrilly. "Don't need to know!" His face was tomato red.

Tony chuckled wickedly in a way that echoed strangely of Loki. "Why, Captain, you're blushing!" Then something occurred to him, and he dialed down his smile a notch. "Oh. _Oh_. Different time period, and all that. I forget sometimes. Does this bother you? The guy-on-guy stuff?"

Not that it would change anything, but he was curious.

If anything, Steve blushed an even deeper red. His gaze skittered away from Tony, and he rubbed at the back of his neck. "Well, no, not exactly," he stammered. "I mean, it's a bit of a shock and I'm a little uncomfortable, but I'll get used to it, I suppose." He finally met Tony's eyes as he shrugged and said, "You're my friend. Truth is, I'm more concerned about the fact that it's _Loki_." Steve's eyes fixed on a point over Tony's shoulder. "What about you, Thor?"

Tony fought the urge to jump in his seat. Trying to be casual, he looked over his shoulder and found Thor standing in the doorway, a long-suffering look on his face and a mug in his hand. Tony smiled, manipulating the corners of his lips like a marionette, and wished that Thor would stop showing up out of nowhere like that. Usually his bulk was hard to miss, and Tony had to wonder if Thor had gotten lighter on his feet or if Loki was altogether too distracting for his own good. He just prayed that Thor wasn't the overprotective-brotherly type, despite their earlier, obscenely awkward conversation.

"In all honesty, my good friend," Thor replied, passing Tony to place the mug on the counter, "this is an improvement to my brother's usual... dalliances." He glanced awkwardly at Tony as he said this, but there was no malice there. "After the scandal with Svadilfari, I've stopped being surprised."

"Svathi-what now?" Tony grunted into his mug, deciding he was more curious than jealous. He suddenly wanted to know everything about Loki, down to the gritty details.

"Svadilfari," Thor repeated idly, excavating a bag of Frito's and turning to leave. "He was a horse."

Tony considered taking another sip of his coffee just so he could spit it across the table. Then he decided that Steve looked close enough to choking for the both of them.

"Hang on," he said, grabbing Thor by the wrist as he walked past. Thor blinked down at him around a mouthful of Frito's. "You mean that myth is _true_?"

Thor looked up at the ceiling and made a noncommittal motion with his head. "More or less," he answered.

Tony stared up at him for a moment before doubling over laughing. The wood of the table was cool against his nose and forehead. "Oh _God_!" he wheezed. "He's _so_ not hearing the end of this!"

* * *

><p>Tony found Loki in his office, booted feet resting on the edge of his desk as he perused a stack of books more quickly than should be physically possible. Tony walked up behind Loki and wrapped his arms about the Trickster's shoulders, leaning forward to nip at the graceful curve of an ear. Loki hummed under his breath and leaned back against Tony's chest.<p>

"So." Tony struggled to hold back a smirk. "Thor told me about you and Svafa-whatsit." He waggled his eyebrows even though Loki could not see.

Loki did not look up, but his eyes stopped moving along the page. "Svadilfari?"

"Svadilf... yeah."

The book dropped to the table, and Loki looked up at him with a purposely blank face. Tony made a note to himself to never play poker with Loki. "And?" he prompted, arching one delicate eyebrow.

Hmm. Trying to unnerve him, was he? Well, two could play at that game. Tony smiled against the shell of Loki's ear. Loki shivered. "And I want details." He pulled back to watch Loki for a reaction.

Loki's face crinkled in disgust, and the Trickster scoffed and shrugged off Tony's arms. He turned back to the book. "Lech," he muttered, almost affectionately.

"Oh come on. I'm just curious!"

"Too bad."

"What was it like? Is it true, the whole 'hung like a horse' thing?"

"It was... proportional." Loki held the book a bit higher and to the side than was necessary, though Tony caught a glimpse of a blush sprouting along his cheek before it disappeared. Tony smirked.

"So you were female, right? So what was that like? I mean, did he come up behind you and – ?"

The book snapped closed, revealing a scowling Loki with a face as red as a cherry. Loki swiveled the chair about to glare at the human. "Tony Stark, if you are _really_ that curious, I can give you a vagina of your own."

Tony immediately opened his mouth to protest and then stopped to think about it. That _would_ be an interesting experiment_. _You know, for _science_.

Loki stared at him for a long moment before sighing and rolling his eyes. "Never mind. You would actually _like_ that, wouldn't you?"

"Oh! That reminds me!" Tony chirped, ignoring the chagrined look on Loki's face. "You're probably the only person who can tell me this: what hurts more, childbirth or a kick in the nuts?"

Loki blinked at him for a long moment before sighing resignedly. "Childbirth, hands down. How can you even ask?"

Tony shrugged. "Well, how would _I_ know?"

"Think about it," Loki sighed, rubbing at his temples. "Childbirth lasts longer. Plus it's like pushing a bowling ball through the tip of your – "

"Okay!" Tony held up both hands in a "stop" motion. "I get the picture!"

Loki's smile was absolutely wicked. "What?" he purred, leaning his chin on the palm of his hand. "I thought you wanted details."

"About the sex, not the... aftereffects!"

"I really don't want talk about that, Tony. It was a long time ago. And a rather... uncomfortable topic, to say the least."

Loki shifted in his seat awkwardly, and Tony watched his face. "Oh man. It wasn't your first time or anything, was it?"

"What? No!"

Tony let out a breath in a nervous laugh. "Oh, good, okay."

Loki went back to his book and nonchalantly added, "My first time was with Seth."

Tony blinked. "Seth," he echoed to himself, knowing that he knew that name. His eyes widened. "Wait, Seth as in the Egyptian _god_, Seth?"

Loki blithely jotted something down as he answered, "One and the same." He smiled softly.

Tony stared at Loki for a long moment, trying to decide how to process this. He could tease Loki about the horse, but the idea of Loki being with another god was... disconcerting.

He was Tony Stark, genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, but as much as he liked to pretend to the contrary, he wasn't a god.

Loki lowered the book a fraction of an inch and watched Tony out of the corner of his eye. A smile curled along his face. "It's in the past, Tony," he murmured. "And if it's any consolation, I dumped _him_."

Tony opened his mouth to respond, but Loki grabbed a handful of Tony's shirt and pulled the human to him. It bent Tony at an awkward angle, but he did not mind as he pressed his lips to Loki's. The god's mouth was always cool against his, his tongue like a drink of water, and Tony closed his eyes to the sensations, breathing raggedly through his nose. He ran a hand over the familiar, perfect planes of Loki's arms and shoulders, before cupping the back of his neck. Loki allowed himself to be pulled closer and growled as he deepened the kiss.

Had Loki been like this with Seth, he wondered? Did he taste like ice and run long, clever fingers over skin and muscle? Or did he hesitate, green eyes large and beautiful and uncertain in the wake of new sensations? The thought that someone had been here before him, had already charted all this beautiful territory rankled in Tony in a way he could not understand. Loki was a _god_, he reminded himself; of _course_ Tony wouldn't have been his first, but the thought of Loki belonging to someone else, even strictly in the past tense...

Tony's grip turned bruising in Loki's hair, around Loki's waist. Loki hummed appreciatively and smiled against Tony's lips. He pulled back to consider his human, his lips still twisted in a wicked curve.

_Mine_, Tony thought, and that frightened him.

Tony ran a hand along a finely chiseled cheekbone and wondered what was the matter with him.

* * *

><p><strong>Footnote:<strong> Remember how I said Seth will be in the next fic...? ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Conspire**

"We need to tell Fury."

Thor, Clint, and Natasha all looked at Steve at this proclamation. He met each measuring gaze, and his lips pressed thin.

"Sure," Clint grunted around his cheeseburger. "If by 'tell Fury' you mean, 'move to Mexico before the shit hits the fan'."

Steve's eyebrows lifted incrementally, but he looked more resigned than surprised. "I'm serious," he said, and Clint rolled his eyes. "This is dangerous."

Natasha stole one of Clint's fries. Thor frowned and fiddled with his hammer.

"Yeah, well, tell that to Tony," Clint muttered. He glared at Natasha's wandering fingers but knew better than to complain.

"In all fairness, my friends," Thor rumbled, "my brother has not caused as much mischief since Tony Stark has started courting him."

Clint coughed and snickered at the word "courting", and Steve shot him a glare.

"It's a fair point, Thor," Steve said. "But how long will that last?"

"Well, if he keeps staying here, we can keep an eye on him," Natasha rejoined. She twirled a french fry around her fingers and then nibbled at the end. "'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer', and all that."

"Yeah," Clint grumbled, "except that when they have their first lovers' spat, they'll probably take the east coast with them. Mexico is looking better and better."

Natasha tilted her head. "Why Mexico?" she asked.

"Well, I'm not going to _Canada_!"

"No one's going to Mexico," Steve sighed, rubbing his temples. "And it's really not our place to interfere right now, anyway. I'm just saying that we should give Fury a head's up."

"We should probably give the _east coast_ a head's up," Clint muttered.

"Clint."

"Whatever, fearless leader."

* * *

><p>Loki waved his hand, and the image of the conspiring Avengers in the kitchen melted back into thin air. He leaned back, using Tony's taut stomach as a pillow.<p>

"So much faith your friends have in us," he said wryly.

Tony frowned at the air where the image had been a moment before, his brows furrowed in thought. "What were you expecting?" He tilted his chin to direct the question at the tuft of black hair against his stomach.

"Oh, pitchforks and torches, honestly. Your friends are taking it much more in stride than I was expecting. How dull."

Tony crooked an eyebrow and carded a hand through Loki's sleek black hair. "Try not to sound so disappointed," he said. "There's still the issue of Fury, anyway. I doubt he'll take it 'in stride'."

Tony felt Loki's lips curl into a smile against his skin. "You'd be surprised," he said. Tony stared at the back of Loki's head and frowned, trying to decipher that.

After a moment, Loki rolled so that he was facing Tony, green eyes flickering as they studied his face. It still wasn't easy for Tony to hold such an intense stare, but he forced himself to not look away.

"Does it bother you?" Loki asked softly. Tony tried to figure out what he was thinking, but Loki's face was masterfully blank.

"Does what bother me?"

"That your master considers me your enemy."

"Okay, first off, Fury isn't my 'master'," Tony replied automatically, letting his mouth run while he tried to figure out how to answer that. He had been dreading this conversation. It was like the super-hero/super-villain equivalent of "The Talk". He let his gaze trail over the beautiful lines of Loki's face and down the graceful curve of his throat. His hand followed a moment later, his thumb lingering over the seam of the god's lips.

"And... yeah, it – it _does_ bother me a bit."

Loki's eyes glittered, and the Trickster parted his lips to nibble at the tip of Tony's thumb. Tony lost his train of thought for a moment.

"Uh." Tony cleared his throat and looked into those wickedly smiling eyes. "I mean, I don't want to change you – never that – but." Tony cupped Loki's cheek and molded his palm to fit in the hollow under his cheekbone. Loki eyed him with guarded amusement. "But I don't want to be your enemy, either."

Tony held his breath and stared at Loki, waiting for a reaction – _any_ reaction. Instead Loki kept his poker face and continued to regard him in silence. Eventually he frowned and rolled to face the ceiling instead. Tony lowered his hand to Loki's chest. He could feel the even tempo of his breathing, the expansion and contraction of his lungs, and he sat, transfixed, in silence for a while.

He came back to himself when Loki threaded long fingers through his and closed his eyes in sleep.

* * *

><p>Steve tried not to fidget under Fury's stare. It was like the man made up for missing an eye by staring with twice the intensity out of the one. That stare managed to make Steve feel small in a way he hadn't since his pre-serum days... or since he had last argued with a certain Peggy Carter.<p>

Steve blinked and shook himself, forcing down the ache that came with memories of brown eyes and red lips. He could still see her face if he closed his eyes...

"Agent Coulson says you have something you wish to tell me."

Steve looked up at Director Fury, and memories splintered under the weight of reality. He glanced around the concrete bunker and exchanged looks with Natasha and Clint before setting his jaw and staring back at that one eye.

"Yes, sir, we do," he said, ever the soldier. Fury tilted his head in a silent question. Steve drew in a breath, hoping that Tony would forgive him for this. Really, he hoped that Tony would see reason and stop fraternizing with the enemy altogether, but he knew that Tony didn't always think with the right head. "It has come to our attention that Loki and Tony are, uh... _canoodling_."

Steve did not appreciate Clint's derisive snort. Fury's expression tightened. His gaze slid to Clint and Natasha. "And by 'canoodling'," Clint helpfully supplied, "Cap means 'fucking like rabbits'."

Natasha rolled her eyes but said nothing.

"Thanks, Clint," Steve all but snapped. This whole thing was awkward enough as it was.

He waited for the explosion. It never came.

Instead, Fury sighed and rubbed his forehead. "So I've heard," he groused.

The Avengers exchanged leery glances. "Heard?" Steve echoed.

Who could have told him?

"Oh, Captain, my Captain!"

Steve knew he shouldn't have been so surprised to hear Loki's voice. He turned to see the Trickster leaning against the door-frame, lips twisted in a cat-like smile. Natasha muttered something in Russian.

Steve fought the urge to reach for his shield. He settled for a narrowed glare. "Loki," he said lowly, evenly. "What are you doing here?"

Loki's gaze slid to indicate Fury. Steve shot a questioning look at his superior. Fury met his gaze with a look of long-suffering.

"We've struck a deal with Loki," he said. "He'll give us information and occasional backup, and we'll ignore his previous crimes."

Steve's mind whirled at this. _What?_

"Sir." He leaned over Fury's desk until they were face to face. He whispered, "You _know_ that he'll break his end of the deal the moment it becomes inconvenient to him."

"Yeah," Fury replied, "but considering the dirt he has on the rest of the world's villains, even a temporary truce with Loki will have lasting benefits." Fury's single eye searched both of Steve's, and for a moment Steve felt like the scrawny little asthmatic he used to be. "Besides," he added, arching an eyebrow, "do _you_ want to deal with him and Tony?"

Steve frowned, pausing to consider this. After a moment he pushed himself upright and stalked to the doorway, pausing to glare into Loki's amused green eyes. "What are you gaining from this?" he growled. "SHIELD's _forgiveness_ of your crimes never mattered to you before."

Loki cocked his head to the side, and Steve realized that Fury's stare had nothing on Loki's. He tried not to shuffle his feet like a little boy.

"And don't tell me it's for _Tony_." Steve's nails bit into the palms of his hands. The thought of Loki, of this manipulative little... little... _whatever _messing with Steve's best friend set his teeth on edge. He never doubted for a moment that Loki had ulterior motives for "dating" Tony Stark.

Loki frowned. "Oh no, it's for me," he answered blithely. "Not so that I can 'date' Tony, as you humans would say, but that so I might have the freedom to _choose_ to date Tony, if I so desire. Plus your confusion amuses me."

Steve squinted at Loki and tried to sieve through these words, tried to see through to the core of his motives. There were always too many variables where Loki was involved, and he was quickly getting a headache.

Loki chuckled and patted Steve's cheek. "Ta," he said, and when Steve blinked, he was gone.

Behind him, Clint muttered, "There is no way in Hell this is going to end well."

Steve was inclined to agree, and, he suspected, so were Natasha and Fury.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N:_ I know nothing about the Avengers' mansion. I just made up the shit on the training room. *shrug*

* * *

><p><strong>The Trickster and the Captain<strong>

Steve knew he should be used to Loki's presence by now, but he still had to stop himself from reaching for his shield every time he ran into the god. Steve didn't trust Loki, and just seeing him now, lazing across the couch, his long limbs tangled with Tony's, raised his hackles. Clad in nothing but pajama bottoms, Steve felt vulnerable.

As though sensing his glare, Loki glanced at him over the back of the couch, smiling that smug, cat-like smile that reminded Steve of "Lo'kitty". Loki ran his hand through Tony's hair and purred something in his ear. Steve grit his teeth as Tony grinned and murmured something back.

Loki had Tony wrapped around his little finger, and he knew it.

Steve and Loki locked challenging stares over the back of the couch again.

_I'm watching you_, Steve's look said.

_Go ahead_, said Loki's.

Steve grit his teeth again and left to pour himself some coffee.

* * *

><p>"Look," Steve heard Clint say as he passed by the kitchen. "Whatever kinky-ass shit you want to get into in your own bedroom is your business, but Goddammit, Tony, I <em>eat<em> at this table!"

Steve paused and backtracked until he was shooting a questioning stare through the doorway. Clint was standing by the kitchen table, his arms folded across his chest. Tony, meanwhile, was fidgeting nervously, albeit with a smirk on his face.

"Sorry, Clint."

Tony sounded anything but. Unbidden, images of Tony and Loki entangled on the table flit through his mind, and Steve grimaced, wishing he could unsee all of that. Actually, Steve wished he hadn't overheard this particular conversation in the first place.

Clint mumbled something and stalked off, face still twisted in irritation. Tony caught sight of Steve in the doorway, and a smile split his face.

"Heya, Steve!" he said, walking over to clap a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," Steve replied with less enthusiasm. "Do I even want to know?" He indicated the table with a jerk of his head.

Tony's smile turned crooked, smug. "No, probably not," he said with a dirty chuckle.

Steve smiled and tried not to let his disapproval show. Steve was used to – if not happy with – Tony's sexual shenanigans, but the thought of said "shenanigans" involving Loki still rankled.

Something of Steve's thoughts must have shown on his face, because Tony took one look at his expression and burst out laughing. He threw an arm around Steve's shoulders and squeezed, grinning affectionately.

"Steve, Steve, Steve," he sighed, still with that infuriating smirk. "You are just too easy to mess with."

"Indeed."

Steve tried not to jump at the sound of a third voice, a smooth, accented voice Steve had grown to loathe. There was a hard edge to that voice now, to that one word. Steve turned to see Loki approaching on silent, cat-like feet.

Loki's eyes flit to the arm Tony had around his shoulders, and Steve could just see the flutter of skin as his jaw muscles clenched. Now, _that_ was interesting.

Steve looked pointedly at Tony's hand on his shoulder and then back at Loki, lips curling in a self-assured grin. Loki's eyes met his and narrowed.

"Hey, Loki!" Tony all but chirped, oblivious to this exchange. His arm slid from Steve's shoulders, and then Loki was at his side, wedging himself between the two Avengers. He curled an arm about Tony's waist and shot a glare at Steve as if to say, _Mine! Back off!_

Steve scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he muttered, stalking back down the hall.

Tony frowned at Steve's retreating back. "I wonder what's up with him," he said.

"Oh, I'm sure it's not important," Loki replied. The words were smooth and even, but there was a knife-like edge to his smile. "So..." Loki ran one long-fingered hand over Tony's shoulder, green eyes hooded and promising so many filthy, filthy things. Tony swallowed.

"By the way," Tony said. "Clint says to stop with the table sex."

Loki huffed a laugh, and his answering smirk was positively wicked. "What about the counter?" he asked, nipping at Tony's ear.

Tony hummed appreciatively. "Oh, how naughty," he purred. "Though that doesn't sound too sanitary."

"Magic," Loki reminded him.

"Mmm, true. You present a compelling argument, good sir."

* * *

><p>A few minutes later, Clint had a second talk with Tony. This time Steve could hear them on the other side of the building.<p>

* * *

><p>Steve wasn't sure when it had started, but he and Loki now traded glares whenever they passed each other in the hallway. They weren't subtle about it; Thor, Pepper, Clint, and Natasha tensed when they saw that one had spotted the other. Even Tony noticed, and Steve could see him shuffling around uncomfortably out of the corner of his eye.<p>

There was a reason Loki had earned the title of Trickster, and Steve wasn't about to stand by and let the god take advantage of his best friend.

The next time he caught Loki alone, Steve grabbed him by the collar and pinned him against the wall.

"I'm onto you," he hissed, eyes blue and bright and piercing. Loki stared calmly, coolly back. "I don't know what you plan to gain from this, but I am _on_to you."

Steve grit his teeth when the Trickster responded with a laugh. "Oh, you are, are you?" he said, voice smooth as silk. His face was a mask of detached amusement. He relaxed into the wall as though he didn't have the super-soldier's hand twisted up in his collar. "And here I thought you Avengers weren't going to be any fun."

Steve grit his teeth. "Is this a game to you?" he spat.

"Everything's a game, Steven," Loki blithely replied. His eyes hardened. "Otherwise, what would be the point?"

"Whatever," Steve grumbled, pushing away from Loki. He spared the god one more glare before returning to the living room, to the couch lit only by the glow of the TV. He sank into the seat next to Tony that Loki usually occupied.

The seat that was his before a certain god interfered.

Tony oscillated between looking bemused and uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat a few times too many, fingernails picking at his beer bottle's label.

"Okay, Steve, really," Tony began haltingly. From his tone, Steve suspected he'd been overheard and tried not to squirm himself. "I know you're not exactly Loki's biggest fan, but could you try not to piss him off any more than necessary? Because then _I_ have to deal with it."

Tony looked to the side as though considering something. Steve opened his mouth to respond, but Tony's words ran away from him.

"I mean, the angry sex is... is just _wow_, but I'm getting tired of replacing broken furniture."

"He's _your_ woman," Clint muttered around the lip of his own beer. "_You _deal with him."

Natasha shot him a Look, but Steve ignored him. He studied Tony's face, the open, pleading expression that the jerk knew always worked on him. Steve pursed his lips, holding strong for his friend's sake.

"I make no promises," he said stonily. His spine prickled with the weight of someone's stare, and he knew that, if he twisted around, he would see Loki in the doorway, face half-hidden by a slant of shadow.

Tony frowned but did not press him. Steve stared at the TV and pretended not to notice the helpless look Tony shot at Loki over his shoulder.

Loki squeezed in on the other side of Tony. He and Steve made it a point to ignore each other through the movie, leaving Tony sitting stiff and uncomfortable between them.

* * *

><p>Steve paused for breath, feeling the sweet burn of adrenaline down to the tips of his fingers. He pushed back his cowl and wiped the sweat from his forehead and upper lip. The simulation faded, and his surroundings returned to the metal box that was the training room.<p>

The door creaked open, and Steve reached for his shield and tightened his grip when he glanced towards the approaching footsteps and saw Loki. The god was looking about him with an expression of detached amusement that Steve was well acquainted with. Loki stopped when he was a few paces away from Steve. The human relaxed his posture even while he maintained his white-knuckled grip on his shield.

Two could feign indifference.

"So this is the training room," the god said. The words bounced off the walls and back to them with tinny undertones, so that it sounded like multiple Lokis speaking slightly out of sync.

_Frightening thought, Steven._

"What do you think?" Steve asked. It was a politer alternative to _why the blazes are you even here_?

"It's... cute."

Steve frowned and crooked an eyebrow. "_Cute_," he parroted. "I doubt that's what Tony was aiming for."

"Doesn't Professor Xavier have a chamber much like this?"

Steve didn't want to know how Loki knew that. "Well yeah," he said. "The Danger Room was originally designed by Tony's father. Professor X pays Tony to make adjustments every few years or so. Tony still likes to tweak it now and then, but he modeled this room on that one."

"Fascinating," Loki murmured, looking about appraisingly again.

"What do you want?" Steve's patience had run out. He was tired, sweaty and in desperate need of a shower. The last thing he needed was... _Loki._ "Tony's upstairs."

He balked at telling an enemy that. And Loki was still an enemy as far as Steve was concerned.

Loki picked at the hem of his sleeve, a sign of nervousness that caught Steve's attention. "Yes, yes, I am aware," he said tetchily. "He... _requested_ that I make peace with you."

"Requested?" And Loki had listened? "And how do you suppose we do that?"

Loki's answering smile did not reach his eyes. "I've always found that sparring is a good way to relieve excess anger." He indicated Steve's shield with a glance.

Steve wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to kick Loki's ass.

Loki summoned a spear from thin air, and Steve widened his stance, angling his body to side to present a smaller target, one more easily protected by his trusty shield. He didn't bother to set the simulation. His focus was on Loki, on his horned helm, green eyes and infuriating smirk. The god approached with the ease and grace of a panther, and the two circled each other slowly, eyes unblinking as they catalogued every step of their opponent.

"Ladies first," Steve said when neither moved to attack. His shield was predominantly a defensive weapon. It's lack of reach versus the spear was not ideal for a beginning strike, and he dared not throw it and leave himself weaponless so early on in the battle.

Loki scoffed but seemed more amused than insulted by the comment. "If you fought the Lady Sif," he said, "you would not dare give her such an advantage."

Steve started to respond when suddenly the fight had begun. Loki lunged at him, striking with his spear with the speed of a viper, and Steve just barely got his shield up in time. He reversed the momentum of his block to slam the shield's edge into Loki's chin, but the god sidestepped the attack and thrust his spear at Steve's exposed left flank.

Steve twisted, but the spear grazed him just over the hip. He growled and caught the spear as it struck him, pulling it forward to overbalance Loki and bringing his shield to bear with the other hand. The ring of metal on metal echoed oddly through the room as the edge of Steve's shield collided with Loki's helmet, wrenching Loki's head at a painful angle.

Loki staggered to one knee, shaking his head and blinking owlishly. His grip slackened for a fraction of a second before tightening again as Steve started to pull the spear free. Steve swung his shield about again, only to feel at jar against the metal floor as Loki pulled to the side and to his feet, twisting the spear free of Steve's grip.

The butt of the spear cracked against Steve's skull, rattling his brain and his vision as he stumbled under the force of the blow. Next the butt cracked against his cheekbone, sending him reeling in the other direction, before hitting the base of his skull a second time.

The shield clanged to the floor, and as it spun, it made sounds against the metal floor that Steve could feel in his teeth. He blinked, and said floor looked much closer than before. Before he could catch his bearings, Loki grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt and threw him onto his back. Steve groaned as his throbbing head cracked against more metal. Loki's face spun in front of him.

"I'm onto you," he slurred. "I won't let you hurt him."

A hand closed about Steve's throat, and Loki's face swam closer.

"And what are you willing to sacrifice for his well-being?" Loki asked. The silken smoothness was gone from his voice.

Long, pale fingers tightened around his windpipe. Steve choked, glared into green eyes and rasped, "Anything. Everything. My life. He's family to me."

Like the annoying little brother he's glad he never had.

Oh, Lord, his head hurt.

Loki's gaze flit over his face, his own expression closed off and inscrutable. Finally he said, "Good," and pushed himself to his feet, allowing Steve to breathe.

Steve gasped and coughed, massaging his throat. He knew there would be finger-shaped bruises there soon enough. For a long moment, he waited for the world to stop spinning and watched Loki catch his breath and adjust his clothing. He realized something. "You honestly care about him, don't you?" he said before he could think better of it.

Loki's gaze met his. Something uncertain flit across his eyes before tucking itself back under his insouciant mask. "Yes," he said softly. "I do." Then he spun on his heel and left, leaving Steve alone with his thoughts and what was likely a concussion.


	5. Chapter 5

**Interlude**

"Mmm."

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Your voice is turning me on."

Clint paused to glare at the wall, wishing it was thick enough to muffle the voices. Too bad he didn't have his headphones with him. Or a knife to slit his wrists.

"Tony, I'm listing spell components to myself, most of which happens to be a fungus of some sort."

"Doesn't matter. Your voice makes everything sound sexy."

Clint was starting to feel ill.

"Oh really?" A chuckle, and then, in a voice dripping with sex, "_Pantaloons_."

A low groan. "Oh yeah."

"Really, Stark? Pantaloons? That is a thoroughly unarousing word."

"And yet this man is made of iron, if you know what I mean."

Clint decided to bunk with Steve for the rest of the evening.

* * *

><p>Natasha closed her eyes with a contented sigh, sinking back into the lounge chair and allowing the sun to sink heated fingers into every inch of her bikini-clad flesh. With Loki containing his Avenger-related mischief to the bedroom, Natasha finally had time to relax and work on her tan. The balmy breeze felt exquisite, and she dozed.<p>

Then voices and the slap of bare feet on pavement drew her back to wakefulness. She mourned the loss of her perfect stillness as Tony, Clint, and Thor catapulted into the pool, one by one. From the laughter and taunts, she suspected they were competing over who could make the best cannonball.

Men.

Everything's a contest.

Natasha squeaked and shouted curses in Russian as water splashed her on the other side of the patio. Clearly Thor had won the contest.

"Hey!" she shouted, sitting up and clutching the arms of her lounge chair. The boys stopped laughing and looked at her with round eyes. Bobbing in the water, their heads ducked sheepishly.

"Sorry!" Tony offered. Thor mumbled something in agreement.

"Hey, 'Tasha," Clint said, sounding anything but apologetic himself. "Why don't you join us?"

Natasha almost said something mulish in response. Then she looked at the water's sinuously writhing surface, at the way it reflected gem-like glitters of sunlight, and decided that it was deliciously tempting.

She sighed as though greatly put-upon and approached the pool, the pavement hot under her bare feet. The boys cheered and clapped as she approached, and she dipped into a bow.

She made sure the splash of her cannonball hit Thor full in the face. Thor was roaring with laughter when she resurfaced.

"And the lady wins the contest!" he exclaimed, beefy arms spread up and out in triumph. His hair clung to his face and neck like strands of sea-weed, and water clumped his beard into spikes.

She smirked at him and made to say something, only to do a double-take when she caught sight of Tony. This close she could see the purpling bruise that swelled along his left cheekbone.

"What happened to you?" she asked. He had been fine this morning and, to her knowledge, hadn't even left the mansion today.

"Oh, ha, yeah." Tony smiled sheepishly, and touched the bruise self-consciously. He darted a look at Thor, and Natasha's eyes narrowed. "This. I, uh. I was hit by a door."

Natasha arched an eyebrow. "Were you now?" she asked wryly. Idly, she kicked her legs to keep herself upright.

"Indeed," Thor said tightly. His eyes were hard as he looked at Tony. "And do you know _why_ the door hit you?"

Tony's eyes darted about uncomfortably. "Because I deserved it?"

"Yes. Yes, you did."

"Okay," Natasha sighed. "Thor, _why_ did 'the door' hit Tony, exactly?"

Thor scowled. "Because Tony was not being a gentleman to the door's brother."

"No," Tony agreed with a wicked smirk. "No, I wasn't."

"Oh, God," Clint groaned. He pantomimed tying a noose about his neck, made fake, dramatic choking sounds, and then let his body float face-down for a bit.

"So you deserved the punch," Natasha said, ignoring Clint. "From the, uh... _door_."

Clint righted himself and drew in great gasps of air.

"Worth it." At the darkening look on Thor's face, Tony added, "Hey, in my defense, it was _his_ idea. Plus he was, uh, equally 'ungentlemanly' to me earlier, if you know what I mean."

Thunder boomed overhead.

Natasha and Clint exchanged glances and simultaneously started to swim towards the stairs.

"Okay."

"Yep."

"We're going now. See ya!"

Behind her, Natasha heard Tony say in a small voice, "The door's going to hit me again, isn't it?"

* * *

><p>"You're attracted to him."<p>

"Hmm?"

"Steve."

Tony sat back and looked at Loki. The god was sitting on his desk beside him, shin grazing Tony's thigh every now and then, and was helping Tony map out some new designs for the training room. He had spoken casually, as though discussing the weather, but Tony knew there was an accusation somewhere under there.

Tony allowed him a moment to pat himself on the back for making a _god_ jealous. _Thank you, ladies and gentlemen! Yes, I_ am_ just that amazing!_

"Attracted, sure," he said honestly. "I'm also attracted to Angelina Jolie and that ridiculously photogenic guy on Tumblr. Doesn't mean I'm going to chase after them."

Loki's expression betrayed nothing. "But have you ever considered chasing after... _him_?"

"Well, yeah, at first." Tony knew better than to try to lie to Loki. "I had a bit of a crush on him, but mostly because he was so goody-goody that I wanted to see if I could corrupt him."

That earned him a blink of surprise followed by a bark of laughter from Loki. Far better than the jealous indignation and bitch slap he had been expecting. "Oh, Tony," the god chuckled, patting his cheek affectionately. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

Tony wrapped a hand around Loki's wrist and smiled slyly. "Only _a_ reason?"

"Don't push it." But Loki's eyes twinkled with humor. Tony pressed a kiss to the inside of Loki's wrist, just over the pulse point, and he could almost feel the tension easing from Loki's frame. He hid his discomfort well, but Tony knew him too well now and could read relief in the tiniest smoothing of his forehead.

"Besides, between you and me," Tony said, "I think Steve's a virgin."

Loki's eyebrows shot up at that. His lips curled in a cat-like smile. "Really?" he all but purred. "Now that _is_ a shame."

Tony looked askance at the mischievous glint in Loki's eye. "What are you thinking?" he asked.

Loki just smiled.

* * *

><p>Steve was loath to admit it, but before waking up seventy years in the future, he hadn't even known it was physically possible for two men to have sex. It just wasn't the sort of thing people talked about back in the day, and even now the logistics weren't something he wanted to think too hard on.<p>

So to speak.

(Tony really was a terrible influence.)

That was probably why this was the last situation he ever expected to be in. He didn't remember signing up for this when he was told to "be all he could be".

And by _this_, he meant having a certain deranged God of Mischief straddling his lap and whispering things in his ear that would have made his mother blush.

Heck, they made _him_ blush.

"Such strong shoulders," Loki purred, breath hot against Steve's neck as he kneaded clever fingers into Steve's deltoids. "Ever since we fought the other day, seeing the way you... _wielded your shield_, I wanted nothing more than to watch you move in another way entirely."

Steve's spine was stiff straight, his eyes round as coins. He was too panicked to do little more than blink and gawp like a fish.

"I wonder," Loki murmured, lips tickling the shell of Steve's ear, "if a 'super-soldier' can keep up with a god. Shall we find out?"

Loki's fingers wandered down to his rib-cage, feather-light through his thin t-shirt. Loki's eyes were dark and hooded, promising naughty things Steve probably hadn't even heard of yet.

Steve finally unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth and managed to croak out a question. "What... w-what about Tony?"

His brain was too scrambled to ask or even think of a more relevant question.

"Oh, he'll be joining us, of course!"

A second pair of hands slid down his shoulders and chest. "Hello, Steve," said another, more familiar voice in a sultry purr. He was certain he felt the brush of facial hair against the shell of his ear.

Steve squeaked and jumped to his feet, startled back into action. Loki tumbled off his lap and onto the floor, legs splayed out to either side, and Tony pulled back. Steve edged away from them and towards the door, facing them all the while.

"I – you – just – ! _No_." Steve made an emphatic cutting motion with his hands. Not one of his more eloquent moments, but he got his point across.

"Oh, Steven, darling," Loki said as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. "You really _are_ too easy to mess with."

Steve bolted from the room, dogged by two sets of laughter.

"Oh God," Tony panted between snickers. He wiped moisture from the corner of his eye. "His face was priceless."

Loki fell back to the floor in a fit of giggles. This was not the evil, self-satisfied cackle Tony was used to but real, genuine laughter that erupted from his chest in tiny hee's. It was rare, it was a treasure, and Tony smiled at the sound. When Loki looked up at him with tears in his eyes, face creased with a million laugh lines, Tony felt warmth blossom through his chest.

"I –" Tony bit his tongue and jolted upright. He had just been about to say "I love you".

And _mean_ it.

Loki's expression turned questioning, and Tony smiled to hide his inner panic. It was just a fluke, he told himself. A manner of speech, like "I love waffles".

Waffles were great and wonderful and made his life better for having been in it, but it didn't mean he was _in_ _love_ with... waffles.

Yes. That was it. Dammit, now he wanted waffles.

"Hey," he said, desperate for a distraction. "Let's do the same thing to Clint!"

* * *

><p>"Alright," Clint said with a put-upon sigh. "But no handcuffs or blindfolds, and the safety word is 'flamingo'."<p>

Weeks later, Loki was still teasing Tony about the look on his face.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N:_ Not as much humor in this chapter, but I have my reasons. And it wouldn't be one of my stories without some hurt/comfort, eh? ;)

* * *

><p><strong>Vulnerable<strong>

The flames were bright and blurred, an orange glow beyond the fog of his vision. The smell of gas was dizzyingly strong. Juxtaposed with the glowing orange in the background were speckles of red in the foreground, a dark, almost black red with flecks of orange reflecting off the sides. Tony coughed, and more red spattered the dashboard.

He tried to push himself up, to dislodge the steering wheel from his sternum where it caged in his arc reactor, but his limbs and body felt so heavy.

One blink, then another, slower, heavier, and Tony willed himself to keep his eyes open, to stare through the wreckage of blood-smeared glass and beyond at the shadows on the other side of the fiery glow. Here he was, Iron Man, after walking away from battles against some of the universe's craziest residents, dying in a car accident after his airbag had failed to deploy. How disappointingly ordinary. He had even worn a seat-belt.

He choked out a laugh. If there was a God – like, one omnipotent Being, not some Asgardian tourist – then He had one fucked up sense of humor.

Blood and foam gathered at the corner of his lips, and Tony decided that laughter, even ironic laughter, was a no-go. God, he was cold, and wasn't that weird, when he was surrounded by fire and choking on smoke?

He thunked his head back against the headrest and let his eyes flutter closed again. Pale skin and green eyes swam through his thoughts, and he suddenly felt alone and so, so scared. The car would blow any moment, now, and then what? He didn't want to die like this. Not alone.

Tony felt a hand against his cheek, cold and long and familiar. He dared not open his eyes in case it dispelled the illusion.

_Loki_, he mouthed, not daring to speak when breathing alone hurt so bad. _Lokilokiloki..._

White-hot, excruciating pain seared through his body, and the steering wheel was wrenched out of his sternum. Tony screamed.

Then he opened his eyes, and he was lying on the ground, wet grass tickling his cheek and neck. The orange glow of the wreckage was far in the distance. He must have blacked out.

There was a face leaning over him with ghost-pale skin and bright, wild eyes. There was a hand on his chest and stomach, keeping his organs from spilling out. Tony recognized the itch of healing magic skittering over his skin.

Loki. His Loki. Oh, thank God.

"H-Hey," Tony wheezed once his lungs had knitted themselves back together.

Loki's eyes were still wild, still bright, and the whites glowed orange in the light of the burning wreckage. Then there was a hand on Tony's throat, grip just this side of too-tight. Loki tightened his grip and pressed his face to Tony's. Those wild green eyes filled Tony's vision.

"Not like that," Loki said in a fierce, trembling hiss. "I can't lose you. Do you understand me? _Not like that_!"

"L-Loki," Tony stuttered, voice little more than a breathy wheeze. "You're h-hurting me."

"_Good_!" Loki shouted hoarsely, shaking Tony by the throat in emphasis. "You deserve it, _you stupid, selfish bastard_!"

Tony watched as Loki's eyes and cheeks glinted in the firelight, and he realized that the god was crying. Hot tears fell against Tony's face and slid down the curve of his cheek. Tony lifted a heavy, shaking hand to cup Loki's wet cheek.

"It's okay," he said. "_I'm _okay."

Something in Loki's eyes wavered, and his jaw muscles fluttered as he grit his teeth. Tony reached for him, tugging him down until they laid chest to chest, and Tony was surrounded by his smell and his weight. Stiffly, Loki complied, all sharp angles and tensed muscles. Slowly, he sank against the human, buried his face in the crook of Tony's neck, clutched the tattered and soiled remains of the human's shirt, and blew out a ragged sigh.

"Not like that," he said again.

Shaking and exhausted but _alive_, Tony wrapped his arms about the god and breathed him in.

* * *

><p>The air was thick with smoke, with fire and screams, and adrenaline pulsed through Tony's body. There was a time not so long ago when he thought he was the only one crazy enough to do this, to walk <em>towards<em> danger instead of away from it. Now all he had to do was look to either side, to catch a glimpse of Thor or Steve or Clint or Natasha, to know that he wasn't alone in his stupidity. He smiled behind his metal mask. A group of adrenaline junkies – that's all they were – channeling their craziness into something productive, like convicts picking up trash on the side of the road.

For some reason, that made him think of Loki, and he wondered what the Trickster was up to. It had been three weeks since Tony had seen him, after the car crash, but _God_, it had seemed like forever.

It was amazing how much could change in the course of a few months.

And then a laser seared a hole in the ground a foot in front of him, and Tony decided that the introspection could wait.

The creatures they were fighting were ugly, eight-legged things – probably aliens of some sort, though Tony had zoned out during Coulson's two-minute briefing. When another laser-like missile shot out from the gun-thing in one of eight limbs, Tony decided that he really ought to pay more attention to these things.

He shot his repulsors at the nearest monstrosity, but the blast seemed to bounce off an invisible wall.

"Hmm."

He knew that Clint was at his back from the twang of his bowstring, and an arrow whizzed by his ear and into the shoulder of the nearest monster. The creature shrieked in two octaves. Tony shot a glare over his shoulder, though Clint couldn't see it.

"A little more warning would be nice," he said.

Clint flipped him off before nocking another arrow.

Tony had been keeping an eye on the wounded creature right in front of him, but he was not prepared for the impact that came from behind and that sent dagger-like shocks of pain rippling along his left side. He made to turn and shoot off a missile and... _didn't_.

His suit had locked up, frozen, leaving Tony trapped inside.

"Jarvis?"

His AI was silent.

"Keep calm, Tony," he told himself, even as he felt his chest and throat constrict in the beginning stages of hyperventilation. "Keep _calm_, dammit."

Around him, the battle still raged, which Tony caught fleeting glimpses of through the suit's eye-slits, a flash of explosion here, an extra limb there...

"Tony!" Steve shouted from somewhere. "_Move_, you idiot!"

"Help!" he shouted, praying that Hawkeye was still close enough to hear. He pushed against his suit, but the damn thing was too well-designed to give under his measly strength. "Someone, please!"

"_Tony_!" Clint, farther away. Dammit_._

A shadow fell over him, and one of those ugly, eight-legged creatures filled his sight. It cocked its head and stared at him, making odd clicking noises in the back of its throat that Tony suspected was laughter.

"Oh shit," he muttered as it leveled a pair of its strange guns at him. "Mommy."

A flash of obscenely bright green light left him seeing spots, and he heard another split-voiced shriek, only louder and more anguished. When he realized he wasn't dead, Tony blinked and squinted, trying to make sense of what had happened.

He heard the crunch of debris under someone's foot, and then Loki's helmeted head filled his vision. The god turned to look at him, frowning in either long-suffering or boredom, and shook his head with a "tsk".

Loki reached up and pushed back the human's visor, and Tony let out a long, shaky breath. It was like breathing for the first time, the breeze cold against his sweat-slick face. Loki arched one fine eyebrow, still looking terribly bored.

"Fancy seeing you here," Tony said. What he meant was, _Thank you thank you thank you it's so good to see you Loki I missed you –_

"Having a little trouble?" Loki asked.

Tony looked about him as best he could. The battle seemed to have ended abruptly, and from all the gore and extra limbs splayed about, he suspected Loki had something to do with it.

"A bit."

Steve entered his field of vision, his cowl thrown back and his expression both questioning and wary as he looked between Tony and Loki.

"A little help?" Tony prompted.

Loki eyed him for a long moment, lips twitching in an echo of a smile, as though trying to decide how to take advantage of this.

"Please?" Tony added. He was going to start hyper-ventilating again if he didn't get out of this thing soon.

Something in Loki's expression softened, and, with a click of his fingers, Tony's suit hummed back to life. He blew out another shaky breath and pulled off his helmet and gauntlets. Then he wasted no time in crushing Loki against him and kissing him hard enough to suck out his soul. Loki squeaked in surprise and glared, only to twine his long fingers in Tony's hair and respond with equal gusto.

Behind him, Tony heard Clint making fake barfing sounds. He extricated one hand long enough to give him the middle finger.

* * *

><p>Tony didn't ask where Loki had been the past three weeks, and Loki didn't tell him. They spent the next twenty-four hours in Tony's bed, making up for lost time.<p>

* * *

><p>"Spar with me."<p>

"Mm?" Tony let his head loll against the back of the couch until he could see Loki standing over him. The god was adjusting his bracers, his face tight. "By sparring do you mean, '_sparring_'?" Tony waggled his eyebrows.

Tony knew that Loki wasn't in the mood when his only response was a warning glance and, "You know what I mean, Anthony." The teasing smile died on Tony's lips, and he sat up to better look at the Trickster.

Loki looked tired but determined, his jaw set and his forehead and eyes lined with wrinkles that hadn't been there yesterday. "Well?" he prompted tersely.

Tony swallowed. "Yeah," he said, though he felt off-balance. "Yeah, just let me get my suit."

"No."

Tony paused in the motion of rising from the couch. He looked back at Loki with his brows furrowed in a question.

"No armor," Loki said, and Tony knew there was no arguing with That Look.

Tony slowly pushed himself to his feet. "But without my armor, I'm – "

"Useless?" Loki snapped. "Exactly. Now, _move_!"

"Now, hang on just a minute – !"

But Loki had already spun on his heel and was walking away, leaving Tony shouting at his retreating and decidedly uninterested back.

Tony cursed and kicked the leg of his sofa.

* * *

><p>The fifth time Tony found himself on his back – and not in the fun way – he decided that he had had enough. He winced and pushed himself up onto his elbows.<p>

"Loki –" he began.

"Again!" Loki whacked him in the thigh with his makeshift quarterstaff. The god paced back and forth, his jaw set and his fingers tapping against the wood in agitation.

Tony pursed his lips and called upon a half-forgotten martial arts move Natasha had taught him a while back. He pushed himself up on his arms and grabbed Loki about the legs with his thighs, twisting just so to bring the god hurtling to the ground with him. Tony had just long enough to savor the wide-eyed look of surprise on Loki's face before the god hit the mat next to him, glaring at Tony with eyes like daggers.

"That doesn't count!" Loki snapped, pulling himself free and pushing himself up. Tony grabbed him by the shoulders and held him in place.

"Just hang on a minute, will you?" Tony said, keeping his voice soft, almost gentle. He found that shouting only made Loki escalate. He tilted his head and widened his eyes in the pseudo puppy-dog look that worked so well on Pepper and Steve. Loki eyed him narrowly but stilled, and the two of them sat cross-legged across from each other. "Loki, what's going on?"

"What's 'going on', human, is that we were sparring up until a moment ago..."

Tony arced an eyebrow at Loki, unimpressed, in imitation of a Lokean look he was all too familiar with. Loki trailed off at that look and frowned down at his hands.

Tony studied him for a long moment. Even when he was being a pain in the ass, Loki was gorgeous, too striking to be mistaken for human, and Tony still couldn't believe sometimes that this contrary, frustrating creature was _his_.

He wished he could remember why the thought of monogamy was supposed to scare him.

"Does this have to do with the other day when my suit malfunctioned? Or... a few weeks ago, in the car accident?"

Loki had an impressive poker face, but Tony was starting to pick up on his tells. There was the tiniest tightening at the corner of Loki's eyes that Tony knew meant he had been found out.

He realized that Loki was worried about him, and he had to fight not to smile.

"So you... want me to learn how to fight better in case something like that happens again?"

Loki looked at him but did not make eye contact. "It wouldn't hurt," he said evenly. "You're of no use to me dead."

Tony frowned, knowing Loki was holding him at arms' length because he was afraid of seeming vulnerable. He of all people could understand that, but...

"Look," Tony sighed. "I'm never going to be as good at this as you or Thor or Steve. And there's no way in hell I'm ever going to be able to move like Natasha! I mean, _whoa – _but, uh, not the point." Tony cleared his throat awkwardly. "I can hold my own in a fight with another regular human, but against the type of guys we're called to fight, my little kung fu moves aren't going to cut it. That's why I have the suit in the first place."

Loki regarded him, again with that closed off expression that made Tony squirm and sweat. He wanted to kiss that look off his face, to pry the mask off with his bare hands and watch the god unravel the way he did in bed. He loved Loki like that, open and vulnerable and _his_.

"And if the suit malfunctions?" Loki asked. "Or if you don't have it? You are far too reliant on your own technology. Your greatest strength could easily become your greatest weakness." Loki blew out a shaky breath. "I know because I know how your enemies think. If I ever wanted to do away with the Avengers for good, I would 'divide and conquer', as you would say. All I would have to do is get you alone, without your suit."

The mask cracked just enough, and Tony saw something like fear or worry flit through those green, green eyes.

Tony felt his mouth run dry. The sweat felt cold against his back, his temples, and his palms. Deep, deep in the back of his mind, he had always been afraid of just that. Everyone knew who he was, and there were nights when he went to sleep wondering if he would ever wake up.

The thing was, he had never really cared before.

But here was Loki, in all his imperfect, screwed up perfection, needing him as much as Tony needed Loki. He would not like it if Loki were the vulnerable one, and he realized then that by not caring about his own well-being, he was being selfish.

Figures.

He took Loki's hand in his, running his thumb along the knuckles, and took heart when Loki did not pull away. Loki watched him warily, his expression closed off again.

"Loki, even if I get stuck like that, again, going Jet Lee on everyone's asses isn't going to help if I can't even _move._" Tony sighed and ran a hand through his sweat-lank hair. "I get it," Tony said. "I do. But I'm only human."

Another crack in the mask, and Loki winced. "Well, you need something," he persisted. "I rely on my magic, but I can fight when the need arises – "

"Magic," Tony blurted, squeezing Loki's fingers without meaning to. He grinned. "Well, then why don't you teach me magic?"

Loki's mouth hung open for a long moment as he – for once – struggled to find words. "Tony," he began haltingly. "I... thought you _hated_ magic."

"Well, yeah, but," Tony continued, "think about it. Everyone _knows_ I rely on technology. The last thing they would expect is for me to pull some magic out of my ass! Especially since I hate it so much."

If it would make Loki stop worrying, he figured he could do it.

Loki chewed on his lip and regarded Tony, his expression more curious than wary now. He smiled, though it did not reach his eyes. "That is... surprisingly shrewd of you," he said. He smiled in a way that told Tony that this was a compliment. "I make no promises, but I suppose I could try."

Anything else he might have said was lost against Tony's lips as the human kissed him.

Loki cupped Tony's face affectionately when he paused for breath. "You are a fool," he said softly.

"Yeah," Tony said softly, running a hand down the pale column of Loki's throat. "Yeah, I know."

* * *

><p><strong>Footnote:<strong> Thank you for the comments, guys! They – and you – are a huge inspiration, and I'm always eager to hear what you think. You are my muses.

Okay, that's a lie. Loki's my muse, but your comments appease him and keep him from feeding me to Fenrir. *whimper*


	7. Chapter 7

**The Ties that Bind (Part I)**

"Like this?"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"What am I doing wrong?"

"Everything."

"Gee, _that's_ helpful."

Steve rolled his eyes and shook his head, ignoring the voices in favor of reading yesterday's newspaper.

A heavy sigh, and then, "Try it a little more like – no, no, Tony, _stopstop_**_stop_**!"

"Huh?"

There was a bone-jarring crash that Steve could feel in his teeth, followed by the smell of sulphur. Steve craned his neck to squint down the hallway in the direction of the noise, newspaper flopping, forgotten, across his lap.

"Tony – " Steve began to shout.

"We're good!"

Steve frowned and sucked his lips between his teeth.

"Nothing to see here!"

"Then what was all that noise?"

"The sound of my pride crashing and burning?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Steve could only just hear Loki's voice float down the hall. "That would involve having some pride to begin with."

"Yeah..."

Another, smaller crash, and a curse. Steve decided he was better off not knowing the details and went back to his paper.

* * *

><p>It was like static, a crackle of electricity centered on the tips of his fingers. The air hummed around him, his skin glowed blue, and for a split second, he could see the outlines of the bones and muscles in his fingers. Then the electricity flickered and died, taking with it the blue glow and the thin bubble he had conjured around himself.<p>

"I got it," Tony breathed, staring at his hand and grinning like a kid with a new toy. "Awesome!"

"Yes, congratulations, you held the shield for two whole seconds." Loki's voice was wry, but he was smiling that soft, genuine smile that few people ever got to witness.

Tony let his hand flop to the table and flexed his fingers. He'd had no idea just how much _work_ went into learning magic. He had been expecting something Harry Potter-esque, a swish-and-flick, and voila, a fireball up your ass!

Instead it had taken him almost a full month to get up two seconds' worth of shield. And now he was exhausted.

"You are not a natural sorcerer," Loki said, and Tony supposed that his thoughts must have read plainly across his face. "Humans have more flexibility in that regard than Aesir, but there is a reason why well-trained sorcerers are rare. You just need the basics: a shield and an offensive strike. This is merely 'back-up', as you would say, not a career change."

Tony nodded, though he still felt frustrated. The important thing was to be able to defend himself in a suit-less emergency, after all. Loki had suggested making magical enhancements to his suit, but he had balked at the thought. He knew he relied too much on his technology, but he _knew_ his technology. He'd rather any magic came straight from him.

Although...

Tony ran a finger lightly up the length of Loki's arm. "I don't suppose you could teach me that spell you used last night, could you?"

He watched as a lascivious smile spread across Loki's face. The Trickster favored him with a sideways look.

"A God of Mischief never reveals his secrets," Loki replied playfully, resting his chin on his palm and leaning towards Tony. "But I could give you another demonstration, if you like."

Cold lips met his, and Tony had no complaints.

* * *

><p>The night breeze was cool against his skin, soothing and grounding, reminding him that he was alive and awake. Loki sighed and wiped the last of the cold sweat from his forehead. His hair was still damp and stringy with it, but he didn't care, not in that moment.<p>

Spending the night with Tony helped the nightmares but didn't dispel them completely. Usually he would shake Loki awake, mostly asleep himself, and wrap his limbs around the god. His warmth and solidity would eventually lull Loki back to sleep. Loki only remembered his fall through the worlds in these dreams, only to wake knowing nothing but a sense of nameless terror.

Tonight, the human was in far too deep a sleep, leaving Loki to suffer alone in the darkness, among the shadows and demons of his mind. Tonight, Loki was outside, alone on the rooftop, roused by a cold breeze when he longed for warm limbs.

Except he wasn't alone. Not for long.

Footsteps behind him, heavy, slow, and trying for stealth but failing miserably.

Thor.

Loki grimaced and wound his arms tighter around himself, debating whether or not he should just teleport away.

The footsteps stopped a few steps shy of where Loki was standing. "Hello, Loki," Thor said, keeping his voice soft as though in deference to a sleeping world that could not hear them.

"Thor," Loki answered without turning around. He stared out at the stars and at the city lights that mirrored them in the dark. "Isn't it past your bedtime?"

Another step, and Thor entered the periphery of his vision, a red and gold blur at the corner of his eye.

"I cannot find sleep," Thor said, "and neither, I suspect, can you."

Loki hummed noncommittally in reply. He could feel Thor watching him, studying him, and he wondered what the other god was seeing.

"What do you want, Thor?" he asked finally, resignedly.

The red and gold blur shuffled awkwardly at the edge of his vision. "Your company," Thor replied, his voice still soft, uncertain, and Loki would find his discomfort amusing under better circumstances. "For months you've been coming and going as you please, to... to see your human, but you have been avoiding me. You are even teaching him _magic_, I hear, but do not so much as greet me in the hall."

Loki scoffed and rolled his eyes. "What arrogance," he sneered, "to think that I care whether you are there or not."

Thor took another step forward, and they were side by side now. The red and gold blur started to gain definition around the edges, to coalesce into _Thor_, and Loki finally turned to look at him. Thor was tired, his hair sweat-lank and armor tattered and bloodied. Just returned from a battle. Loki remembered how Thor would spar or go looking for trouble when he couldn't fall asleep. Goodness knows he had been dragged along often enough.

"Do you deny it then?" Thor asked tightly. "Then why has _Clint_ seen more of you than I have?"

"What does it matter, Thor?" Loki snapped. "I am here, as you say, 'to see my human'. You and I have all of eternity to fight and talk and whatever the Hel else you wish! There is plenty of time for that when the human is gone."

Loki kept himself numb, shoving aside the panic and anger that knowledge dredged up. He stared out at the night but saw none of it.

"There is plenty of time for it now," Thor answered. "The city sleeps, but we don't. Can we just talk, brother?"

Loki tried not to wince at that name. "Words have never been your strong suit, 'brother'," he grumbled. "But say what you will."

Judging from the number of blinks, Thor had not expected that answer. Thor leaned on the rail and stared out at nothing as well, jaw working uselessly for a long moment.

"I want you to join us, Loki. I don't want to be your enemy."

Loki laughed mirthlessly at that. "Then don't be," he said.

"What?" Thor turned to look at him fully.

"You heard me," Loki said with a small smile. "Don't be my enemy. Join with me, and together we can purge this world of these human insects." He eyed Thor slyly, expression giving away nothing.

"What?" Thor said again. "You know I can't do that, Loki!"

Loki turned to face Thor fully. "Oh, I see," he said with a saccharine smile, "you mean you want _me_ to be the one to make all the sacrifices? Hardly seems fair when you're the one coming to _me._"

Thor straightened, his face tightening. "But if the Man of Iron asks, it is fine?" he ground out.

Loki bristled. "What are you talking about?"

"When you made a deal with Fury, was that not for _Tony's_ sake?"

"You want to know why I did that?" Loki hissed, leaning until his was right in Thor's face. "Because Tony _didn't_ ask and said he never would, even though I knew it was what he wanted."

Thor gaped at Loki, brows furrowed as he tried to puzzle this out.

"I-I thought..." he stammered. "Forgive me. I should not have assumed."

"No. No, you shouldn't have." Loki laughed bitterly and pulled back. "You may think yourself so much wiser than before, Thor, but the truth is, you haven't changed a bit."

Loki turned to walk away, when Thor's hand on his shoulder stopped him. "That's why I need you," Thor said softly. "You were always the wise one."

Loki frowned and shoved aside Thor's hand but felt his anger soften to annoyance.

"I just want my brother back, Loki."

Loki's answering smile was more of a grimace. "Oh, Thor," he said in a parody of affection. "Your brother died years ago. He isn't coming back."

This time Thor did not stop him when he walked away.

* * *

><p>Loki woke well into the morning to the smell of coffee and fried eggs. He stretched and rolled onto his back, wiping a crust of drool from the corner of his mouth. Tony sat on the edge of the bed next to him, tantalizingly waving a mug of steaming coffee under his nose. Loki smiled and sat up, early-morning crabbiness nullified by the immediate presence of coffee. He took the mug, sipped and closed his eyes. Black with two sugars, just as he liked it.<p>

"I knew there was a reason to keep you around," Loki purred, skating a long hand up Tony's leg. Tony smirked and sipped at his own coffee, pale with three sugars, sweet enough to rot his teeth.

"Well, my new religion involves bringing my god offerings of coffee every morning," Tony replied, voice still gravelly with sleep in a way that ran straight down Loki's spine. He pressed a chaste kiss to Loki's lips and indicated the end table with a nod of his head. "And eggs. Thought breakfast in bed might keep you _in_ bed a bit longer."

Loki looked to the side and saw a pair of fried eggs waiting for him, still sizzling. He dodged another, less chaste kiss with a strategic sip of coffee.

"Breakfast first," Loki said sweetly, tangling a hand in Tony's t-shirt front, "and then 'your god' wants you on your knees."

Tony hummed appreciatively in the back of his throat. "Although, the last time one of us did that..."

"Yes, yes, Thor, I know," Loki sighed. Just the thought of his brother killed the mood for him. He frowned and turned to his eggs.

Tony sat back and regarded the Trickster for a long moment. His fingers tapped against the side of his mug in a way that Loki knew meant he wanted to say something but was holding himself back.

"Out with it," Loki sighed, glaring at his eggs.

"You won't kill me?"

"I make no promises."

"Alright then." Tony paused to take a long gulp of coffee, and Loki raised an eyebrow, wondering just how badly the self-destructive idiot was scalding his throat. "It's just... Thor looked a bit like a kicked puppy this morning, and..."

Tony trailed off meaningfully, eyeing Loki, but Loki watched him expressionlessly, letting him flounder on his own. Tony sighed and rolled his eyes.

"_And_ I was wondering if you had something to do with that?"

"If I did, would it be any of your business?" Loki blithely went back to his eggs, stabbing the yolk and watching it bleed yellow over his fork and plate.

"Uh." He could feel Tony watching the clipped way Loki stabbed at his eggs. "I guess no, not really." A pause, and then – _wait for it, Loki, _"No, yeah, actually it kind of is. I'm the one stuck in the middle of a spat between two angry gods, and that is _not_ someplace I'd like to be."

Loki regarded Tony with one eyebrow raised, unimpressed. Tony staunchly eyed him back, though his fingers continued to tap nervously. The idiot human was still afraid of his temper. Good. Loki doubted he could bring himself to hurt the fool now, but he did not need Tony to know that. Loki liked being the one in control. Always.

"You want me to talk to him," Loki said flatly. This was the part where Loki would normally snap and tell Tony to leave it alone, but the coffee left a pleasant glow in his stomach and it did not seem worth the effort. He suspected that had been Tony's plan all along and found himself impressed by the human's deviousness.

"It'd be nice, yeah."

"Mmhm. And what do I get out of it, if I do?"

Tony smirked and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Loki laughed. "I'll get that anyway."

"Well, yeah. But I'll do that _thing_ I usually don't do..."

"Tony, all I have to do is point, and you'll do that _thing_."

Tony opened his mouth to reply, only to sigh and nod his head in a, "yeah, you're right" gesture.

Loki chuckled and set aside his empty plate. "It's not your problem, Tony," he purred, wrapping his arms around the human's shoulders and mouthing at his ear. "Now let me take your mind off it, hmm?"

* * *

><p><strong>Footnote:<strong> The Thor issue will be continued in the next chapter, since this one was getting too long. Don't worry, it won't interfere with the Tony/Loki-ness going on, but it _is_ something that needs to be addressed, methinks.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: _THE AVENGERS. THE FEELINGS. I CAN'T.

Unf. Go see it if you haven't it. It's worth the wait.

* * *

><p><strong>The Ties That Bind (Part II)<strong>

"Here."

Something black slid into Thor's line of sight, and he caught it purely on reflex, feeling plastic creak under his fingers. He stared at it warily, turning it over in his hands. It resembled a gun, but nothing happened when he pulled the trigger.

"Try not to break it."

Thor looked quizzically up at his brother, who stood behind the couch, arms crossed and expression blank. Not for the first time, Thor wished he could read minds.

"What is this?" he asked, brandishing the toy and hearing it rattle as he did so.

"It's a fake gun," Loki supplied with a surprising lack of snark. His face remained a mask, his thoughts closed off to Thor. "For a game Tony calls... 'laser tag'?" He tilted his head as though unsure of the name.

Thor bit back a smile. "Ah, yes," he said. "I have played this tag of lasers once before with Steve, Tony and Clint."

"Yes, well," Loki muttered, fidgeting only a bit, barely enough for Thor to pick up on his discomfort. "The humans wish to play. Steve, Clint, and Natasha are one team, which means that Tony and I need a third." He looked meaningfully at Thor before his gaze darted to the rug.

Thor stared first at his brother, then down at the 'gun', amazed, surprised, and struggling against proclaiming his joy. He knew how Loki hated when he did that. He allowed himself to smile, however.

"Do you think that's fair?" he asked. "Two gods on one team?"

Thor just caught the smirk that flashed across his brother's face. "Tony insists it balances out our 'lack of experience' with Midgardian technology."

Thor laughed. "Very well, then!" he boomed. "I accept!"

He stood and clapped his brother on the shoulder, not noticing his grimace but only the wan smile that covered it.

* * *

><p>"Sometimes it pays to be rich," Tony said as he affixed the breastplate-like device that would register his enemies' blows. Loki kept trying to sneak his off, but Tony would grab his hand and give him a look that said, <em>I'd be laughing at this, but I have to set a good example<em>.

"So to speak?" Loki prompted archly. Tony grinned wolfishly and adjusted his grip on his weapon of choice.

"Hey," he said, "not many people get their own personal laser tag court. Being a billionaire rules!"

"Mhmm," Loki hummed noncommittally, tightening a few straps. "I reserve judgment until I see just how much this laser tag 'rules'."

"'Tis a game that favors tricksters," Thor replied, too-loudly, as was his only volume. "I suspect that you will be most good at it!"

He clapped Loki on the shoulder and jostled him nearly enough to drop his gun. Loki shot him a sidelong glare to which Thor remained blissfully oblivious.

"Alright, guys," Tony said, hefting his gun. "We've less than a minute before Hell breaks loose. Scatter!"

Loki darted out in the opposite direction of Thor.

* * *

><p>Loki had to concede that Thor was right about one thing. He <em>was<em> rather good at this.

He milked his ignorance of the game for all it was worth, using dopplegangers, illusion, and teleportation to evade the "enemy", until the third time Steve shouted that magic was cheating and Tony, laughing, had told him to "cut it out".

"We're way ahead, anyway," he whispered to Loki when they found themselves nestled in a corner together. "Give 'em a chance to catch up a bit or they'll get cranky."

Loki smirked and saluted him with his gun. He turned to leave, only to think better of it. "How long do you think we could sit here before they find us?" He snaked an arm around Tony's shoulders to make his meaning clear.

"We can't," Tony said, even while his eyes gleamed in a way that said, _Okay, yeah, maybe we can._

They never found out, because Thor barreled into their corner seconds later, swatting Tony upside the head when he found them lip-locked. "Anthony Stark!" he growled. "The battlefield is no place for such antics!"

Loki arched an eyebrow, amused that he was excluded from the scolding.

"Okay, first, _ow_," Tony groused. "Second, it was your damn brother's idea in the first place!"

Thor pursed his lips, hunching close to remain under cover. "Be that as it may," he said. "I may or may not have led the others straight here." He looked away sheepishly.

Tony groaned and pushed himself up. "Alright," he said. "Fan out. Maybe we can flank them."

* * *

><p>"They've only one life left."<p>

"We've only two."

Loki and Thor glanced at each other and then at Tony. Their makeshift fort consisted of two walls, which joined to form a right angle, and each of them took a corner to guard, pausing to catch his breath.

Loki peeked around his corner and pulled back when he caught the flash of a laser aimed his way. He shook his head and huffed. "It seems that Hawkeye has found a nest," he said. He pointed up and behind him, in the direction of the fort Clint had claimed. "An ideal sniping location, unfortunately for us."

Tony hummed in agreement. "He's our biggest problem right now, and they know it," he muttered. He paused to chew his lip. "They're down to one life, so chances are Steve and Natasha are guarding him, since he's the best shot and already has some prime real estate."

"We can sneak out the other side," Loki added absently, his mind awhirr with possibilities. "I've an idea..."

Thor started to chuckle, and Loki threw a questioning look over his shoulder at the blond idiot.

"'Tis just like old times!" Thor said, his whisper still somehow too loud. He reached over to clap Loki on the shoulder and squeeze. Loki felt his expression darken. "My bravery and your brains. An unstoppable match!"

Tony pointedly cleared his throat. "I'd like to think I helped a bit, you know," he griped.

"Thor," Loki muttered, brushing off his brother's hand, "you are making me wish to engage in friendly fire." He looked to Tony for confirmation. "That is the term, correct? Though it seems to me that said fire would be particularly _un_friendly."

"Yeah, that's the term. Though with you, I suppose it _would_ be 'unfriendly' fire."

Loki looked askance at the smirking human. He suspected there was an insult in there somewhere.

Thor merely smiled wider and pulled his hand away. "Always so cynical, my brother."

Loki opened his mouth to say something biting, only to catch sight of Tony out of the corner of his eye. Tony eyed him pleadingly, eyebrows raised just so, and Loki pursed his lips and remained silent.

"Very well," Loki said instead. "Here's what we'll do..."

* * *

><p>"Have they moved yet?"<p>

Clint wished Steve would stop hovering and shot a glare over his shoulder that said just that. "Dunno," he muttered. He squinted down the barrel of his gun. "Loki's still there, at least. I can see the edge of his foot."

"I don't trust that," Natasha whispered back, her eyes fixed on the passage leading up to their nest. "He's probably letting us see it on purpose. He wants us to know he's still there, so that we think the other two are there as well. He's the diversion."

Steve nodded, brow furrowing in thought. "Seems like something he'd do," he murmured. "On your guard, everyone."

"There!" Hawkeye shouted, pulling the trigger as a blond streak hurdled past. He cursed when the Thunder God ducked behind another partition. For such a large target, he was surprisingly agile. Clint suspected he would have been down already if he had had his trusty bow instead. It was an entirely different art-form, wielding a gun, but he was still the best shot of the group. Thor darted out again, and Hawkeye continued to fire even as Steve and Natasha shouted behind him, the cheesy laser sound amplified suddenly.

"Aw, you got me!" Stark's voice from the passage behind them, and Clint smirked, alternating his gaze between the edge of Loki's shoe and Thor's ducking and diving blond head. One more kill, and they would win this.

The lasers continued to blare.

Suddenly, the game was over, and the overhead lights flickered on. "What the – ?" he sputtered. Then Clint looked down to see Loki hanging one-handed beneath him from the window he was sniping from, gun pressed to Clint's chest piece. "_How_ the – ?" Clint looked back and saw the point of Loki's shoe still where it was.

Loki laughed and clambered into the fort, holding up his gun and pretending to blow smoke from the barrel. _Tony's been making him watch too many movies_, Clint thought. Then Loki held up his right foot and wiggled his besocked toes. Thor stood up, grinned, and waved from his position.

"Come on," Tony panted, grinning far too widely as he patted Steve on the shoulder. "Winners buy dinner."

He draped an arm about Loki's shoulder and kept it there as they walked out, pausing first to retrieve Loki's shoe.

"Those two," Steve sighed, shaking his head, "are a lethal combination."

* * *

><p>They ate together at a local pizza joint, one sweaty mass crammed into a too-small booth. If Loki shared a meat-lover's pizza with Thor, no one commented on it, though he whispered, "You'll pay up tonight," into Tony's ear.<p>

Later, he taught Tony a new spell that would be useless in battle, but Tony had no complaints.

* * *

><p><strong>Footnote: <strong>Got the laser tag idea from the Loki to my Sigyn on my facebook roleplaying account (which I essentially made so that I could flirt shamelessly with a Loki, and ohhhh, dear lord, how quickly everything turns to innuendo between us, hehehe). "Loki" posted a status update that had to do with how he should never be allowed to play laser tag. The idea amused me, so I borrowed it. xD


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N:_ More angst than humor in this chapter, but it was bound to happen. Most of the humor that _is_ here can be blamed on Clint. Which is interesting since usually I blame Loki for this sort of thing, but he's too busy angsting out. Silly boys. *siiiiigh*

* * *

><p><strong>In the Crossfire<strong>

"_What_ did you just say to me?"

"You heard me!"

Natasha paused the video game and traded glances with Clint. The artificial sounds of clanging metal and dying gurgles cut to silence in the room. The shouts still rang in Clint's ears, despite coming from down the hall.

"Lovers' spat?" Natasha asked with raised eyebrows.

Clint shushed her and strained to listen, the controller in his hand forgotten. The voices continued to argue, this time in angry hisses that Clint couldn't make out.

At least not until he heard the voices getting closer, accompanied by stamping footsteps. Oddly, Tony sounded like the angrier party.

"Wow," Natasha murmured. "I always assumed that it would be Tony pissing off Loki, not the other way around."

Clint nodded in agreement, and then the two of them shuffled along the floor until they were hidden by the couch. The angry voices filled the room.

"Oh, I see!" Tony said with biting sarcasm. "I'm a lowly mortal, so _nothing_ I do matters!"

"Stop twisting my words!" Loki snapped back. "And where are you going?"

"But that's what you're saying!" Tony all but shrieked. "And I'm getting a drink. Is that _okay _with you, Your Highness?"

Clint heard the clink of glasses and the slosh of liquid, the sounds harsh and amplified, and he imagined Tony slamming the glass around.

"Well, think about it!" Loki hissed. "How long do you mortals live? A century, at the most? You are like insects compared to us! How can you _possibly_ contribute anything long-lasting – ?"

Loki was cut off by another slosh of liquid, and judging by the tense silence, Clint figured Tony had just thrown his scotch in Loki's face.

Clint reached for his comm and flicked it on to the channel he and Natasha shared with the other Avengers – meaning Not Tony – that they had made just for such an occasion. As softly as he could, he said, "Codename FrostIron has reached code red. I repeat, FrostIron, code red."

He flicked off his comm again before anyone could respond and make it crackle noisily to life.

He exchanged worried glances with Natasha.

"That was childish," Loki said lowly.

"More of a waste of good scotch."

The floorboards creaked under someone's feet. Clint guessed Tony's since Loki walked like a damn ninja. Or a cat.

Oh. Ha. That made sense.

"Do you realize what you're saying?" Tony snapped. "Do you _hear_ yourself, you arrogant twit? You're telling me that my entire life means nothing, that everything I've done, the inventions I've made, the work that I've accomplished mean _nothing_. How do I _not_ get offended by that?"

"Tony – "

"And just what the hell have you done with _your_ life that's so great, huh?"

_Uh oh, _thought Clint. He turned to see the same sentiment written in Natasha's round eyes.

"In fact, what have you done, _period,_ besides – _Gahhhkk_!"

Clint would wager that Loki had just wrapped a hand around Tony's throat.

"Tony," Loki said softly, "I'm going stop you right there before you say something you will later regret." He sounded more weary than angry now.

A few moments of heavy silence broken only by Tony's choking gasps for air. Finally there was the sound of creaking leather, and then Tony let out a long, shuddering sigh. Loki must have let him go.

Clint edged around the couch and hazarded a look at the dysfunctional couple. Tony was rubbing his throat, still wheezing a bit, and glaring at Loki with a look that could melt ice. Loki, on the other hand, was ice that refused to melt, his expression impassive except for the clenching of his jaw.

"Would you like me to throttle _you_ every time you say something stupid?" Tony said.

Under his breath, Clint muttered, "Yes." Natasha lightly smacked him in the shoulder.

Loki's glare narrowed, and Clint could have sworn that the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. "You really don't know when to shut up, do you?" he said in a voice menacingly soft.

Clint had to concede that Loki had a point there. Tony, on the other hand, merely did what he did best and blabbered on.

"Oh, ho!" Tony huffed. "That's rich coming from _you_, Mister High and Mighty!"

Tony was in Loki's face now, and Clint tensed, watching Loki bristle.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Do I need to ask the god's _permission_ to speak, now? Look." Loki opened his mouth to respond, but Tony's expression turned from sneering to pained. He held up a hand to silence Loki. "If I am so _insignificant_ to you," he said softly, "then what the Hell are we doing?"

Loki's eyes went wide at that. "Tony – "

"Just forget it."

Tony spun on his heel and walked away, leaving Loki standing alone in the room, looking strangely lost. Eventually the god wandered away in the opposite direction, and Clint and Natasha clambered out of hiding.

"I was expecting more property damage," Clint said.

Natasha glanced at him with one eyebrow raised. "Fight's not over," she reminded him.

"True."

Clint clicked his comm back on, and it immediately crackled to life.

"_Hawkeye, come in! What's happening?_"

Clint smirked and shook his head. "Ironman and Lokes are having a tiff. Nothing violent yet, but it looked like it might turn that way, for a moment."

"_Dammit_," Steve muttered. "_Keep an eye on them. Thor and I will be back as soon as we can._"

"Aye, aye, Cap'n."

* * *

><p>Loki stared out at the horizon, trying to decide what to do. He had to let Tony go, that had been the point of provoking the fight, after all, but he wasn't sure if he could handle having the human so angry at him. Loki understood loss and pain better than most, and for once – just once – he wished he could cling to something.<p>

He hadn't left the mansion. He knew that in itself was telling and that he had already made his decision.

"Damn you," he murmured, running a hand through his hair. "You're such a fool."

Loki didn't know if he was speaking of Tony or himself.

* * *

><p>For a while, Loki lurked in the shadows and watched Tony work. The monitors highlighted his face in blue, exaggerating the contours of his cheekbones and brow and making his eyes glow in the dim light.<p>

"I am sorry," Loki said after many moments of silence, said before he could over-think just what, exactly, he was doing.

Tony started and cursed, dropping his phone with a clatter. He closed his eyes a moment and sucked his lips between his teeth before he bent to put up his phone.

"Loki," he sighed, finally wheeling his chair about to face the god leaning against the wall, "how many times do I have to tell you not to sneak up on me like that?"

Loki regarded the human in front of him warily. His anger had fled, and now he merely looked tired. The cold light of the monitors exaggerated the shadows under his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Loki said again, softly, referring both to the surprise and to their earlier argument.

Tony regarded him for a long moment, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest. He lifted an eyebrow as if to say, "And?"

Loki sighed and shifted his weight awkwardly. "I didn't mean to upset you," he said. A lie, but who was counting.

Tony rubbed a hand over his face and shook his head. "Is that all you got?" he asked.

Loki tried not to bristle. "What else would you have me say? I do not exactly have... much experience with this."

"With what? Admitting you were wrong? Yeah, I'd guess not."

Loki pursed his lips. Tony was still upset. His words must have struck a nerve earlier.

Damn.

After a while, Tony said, "You implied that mortal lives were meaningless."

Loki eyed him for a moment. "Yes," he said.

"Do you really believe that?"

"No."

Tony blinked as he seemed to process this. "Then," he said after a while, "why do you keep saying – ?"

"What else am I supposed to do, Tony?" Loki asked wearily. "I have to at least _try_ to convince myself."

"What? Why?"

* * *

><p>"This is better than a soap opera," Natasha murmured in Clint's ear. He laughed quietly in reply.<p>

They were crouching in the shadows like the world-class assassins they were. Clint was still amazed that they had managed to hide from Loki, but he supposed even gods of mischief got distracted.

For a long moment, Loki said nothing. "Because this – us – will end one of two ways," he said at length, and Clint had to strain to hear. "Either we break up or you die."

Loki didn't elaborate, and for a long moment, Clint was left in the dark. And then he realized...

Either way, Loki was going to end up alone. He was trying to convince himself that Tony meant nothing so that he could steel himself against the inevitable. Boy, he thought _he_ was cynical.

Another silence, heavier than the last. Clint had a feeling that Loki would kill him and Natasha if he knew they'd heard that. Or at least turn them into small woodland creatures.

Clint looked at Natasha and imagined her as a honey badger.

"Shit," Tony said softly. The chair creaked as he pushed himself to his feet. "Loki, you can't think like that."

"Tony, a human lifetime is nothing to me. I have to, or –"

"No, you don't. You _don't_."

Clint craned his neck to get a better look. Loki was standing stiffly, face tight and closed off, a Fort Knox locking up emotions Clint hadn't thought he was capable of feeling. Tony stood a breath away, face contrastingly open and pained. He bent to catch Loki's gaze, but the god turned stubbornly away.

"Okay, so the future's gonna suck at some point," Tony said with his usual eloquence, stuffing his hands into his pockets and shifting uncomfortably. "Don't you think that makes the present more important? I mean, c'mon, you might as well soak up as much of this as you can!"

Tony gestured at his own body with a suggestive smirk. That earned a tiny huff of laughter from Loki.

"I suppose I should, shouldn't I?" Loki's voice had taken on that darkly sweet quality that Clint realized, with a grimace, meant sex. He bunked in the room next to theirs, after all. The things he'd heard... he doubted he would ever sleep again.

Tony closed the distance between them. With Loki leaning against the wall, they were almost the same height. Loki looked at Tony with hooded eyes, wrapping long arms about his waist and pulling their bodies flush together. Their lips met, and Clint swallowed bile at the wet sounds of their tongues sliding together.

"I think they've moved on to the make-up sex," Clint whispered to Natasha, who looked somewhere between amused, relieved, and horrified. "Their regular sex is noisy enough. We might want to get out of here before we hear things we'll never recover from."

Natasha nodded vigorously. Clint chewed his lip and tried to map out an escape route. In the end, Clint shrugged and went for the direct approach. He stood up and addressed Loki and Tony.

"Hey, could you hold up on the make-up sex until we're out of earshot? 'Kay, thanks!"

The couple froze, still lip-locked, and Loki stared at Clint with round eyes. His face flushed red to the tips of his ears, and he pulled away from Tony with a snarl, fingers moving angrily in the beginning of a hex.

Clint grabbed Natasha by the hand and ran like he had never run before.

* * *

><p>Tony laughed and pulled Loki back into his arms before he blew up his teammates. Loki glared at him but allowed himself to be maneuvered, letting the spell fizzle out. He melted when Tony pressed a series of kisses to the pale column of his throat.<p>

Loki pulled back a moment to study Tony's face, cupping his cheek and feeling stubble rasp under his palm. There were tiny gray hairs mixed in with the brown spikes, and the knowledge that Tony was aging sent a pang of grief through his heart. Tony was slipping through his fingers already.

Loki's throat closed around the weight of three words that had been on his minds for weeks now, afraid that, in saying them, he would cement the truth they represented and so doom himself to lifetimes of pain and loneliness.

"Hey," Tony murmured, cupping Loki's chin. "What'd I say? Focus on this, on right now. And stop thinking so damn much."

Loki looked into Tony's eyes, soft and dark with want and affection. He knew that little of what he was thinking had shown on his face, but Tony knew him like no other.

_I don't deserve you_, he thought, staring into those laughing dark eyes. _I never will._

"You're a fool," he said instead.

Loki hungrily pressed his lips to Tony's before the human could read those thoughts as well.

* * *

><p>"<em>Hawkeye, can you give us an update on the FrostIron situation?<em>"

Clint smirked when his comm crackled to life. There was no Trickster god in pursuit, for which he was deeply grateful.

"It's alright, Cap," he said. "FrostIron is no longer code red. It has, however, reached code 'love shack', so you might want to avoid the workshop. And sanitize the bench before you sit on it."

"Code _love shack_?" Natasha asked in amusement.

"Bring your juke box money, baby."

"_I could have lived without that knowledge_," Thor complained. Clint smirked.

"Sorry, big guy."

He was anything but.

* * *

><p>When Thor returned that evening, he expected to find Loki and Tony still entwined. He did not expect to find Loki back on the roof, leaning on the rail and staring out at nothing. Thor felt a pang of older-brother worry at that vacant look.<p>

_Oh, Loki,_ he wanted to say. _We've been at peace for so long, and I'm starting to see the old you again. Please, please, don't let that go_.

Because Loki had the look of someone on the edge, someone haunted, like he had on the Bifrost all those years ago.

"Loki," Thor said, drawing up next to him, "brother. Is everything all right?"

Loki blinked and shifted to indicate that he'd heard, but his gaze still held that lost, unfocused look. After a long moment, he whispered, "No."

And then he was gone before Thor had a chance to respond.

* * *

><p><strong>Footnote:<strong> Oh, and... for those who don't know, "FrostIron" is the more/less "official" name for Loki/Tony on tumblr, though personally, I'm partial to "Lark". XD

Seriously, look under the "frostiron" tag and bask in the glory. God bless the internet!


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N:_ Since a number of readers have asked, yes, Bruce will be along eventually. ;) I was unfamiliar with the character for a while, but I now have a better understanding/liking of him, so expect him to pop in later, though it might take a few chapters (I've already written through 12 sans Bruce, mwahaha!).

Just... yeah.

* * *

><p><strong>Winter Wonderland<strong>

The world was awash in shades of gray. It was like living in a black and white photograph, the way winter sucked the color from the world. It had snowed heavily the night before and was snowing still, though only just. Snowflakes clung in icy clumps to Loki's hair, and the god shook them away impatiently.

The ice and snow reminded Loki of Jotunheim, and colorless and cold was exactly how he felt.

Tony, on the other hand, was like a little kid, whooping and diving into banks of snow, making snow angels and snowmen doing naughty things to each other. Loki trailed after him and felt the snow crunch underfoot, smiling softly despite himself.

It was Central Park, and they were far from alone, but here amidst the bare-limbed trees and white ground they were in a world all their own. In the distance, children cheered and laughed, accompanied by the scrape of sleds, and Loki almost hated them for being so happy.

But then Loki looked down at Tony making another snow angel, at his red cheeks and the ice crystals caught in his goatee, and laughed before he could stop himself. Tony folded his arms behind his head and smirked up at the god.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"You," Loki said, shaking his head. "You're a child."

He fully expected the snowball that came flying towards his face the next moment, but he still crinkled his nose in irritation at the bloom of wet and cold against his skin.

Loki could retaliate tenfold with magic, but there was something far more satisfying about pinning Tony to the ground and stuffing snow down the back of his shirt with his own hands. Tony bit back a shriek and rolled until he had Loki beneath him. Loki laughed and half-heartedly swatted aside more fistfuls of snow as they were shoved in his face.

Loki grabbed up a clump of snow, only to pause when he realized that the human had stopped laughing. Tony sat back on his haunches and eyed him strangely, brow furrowed in what was either concern or confusion or both.

"Are you alright?" he asked. "Your lips are turning blue. In fact... your _face_ is – "

Loki stiffened and pushed Tony off him with a curse. He ignored the human's surprised, "Oof!" and irritated, "Hey!" in favor of pulling his scarf up to cover as much of his face as he could.

_Nonono_, he chanted in his mind, his heart thudding with panic. _This _was why he hated the snow and the cold and had tried to convince Tony to _stay the Hell inside, moron!_

The last thing he wanted was for Tony to see this, to see what he really was, a fraud, a monster.

A _freak._

He clambered to his feet, careful to keep his face angled away from Tony.

"Loki, what...?"

"I'll see you back at the mansion."

"Hey!" Tony's fingers were pressing bruises into his arm before Loki could trigger the teleportation spell. He cursed and recoiled when Tony bent to look up into his face. "Okay, Loki, seriously, you're freaking me out, here."

Tony's gloved hand was slick with melted snow when it touched Loki's cheek and tilted his face into the light. Loki screwed his eyes shut and allowed himself to be maneuvered until he was facing Tony and they were standing toe to toe. The scarf was pulled from his face.

He heard the sharp intake of breath and then Tony's low, "Whoa."

Loki grimaced and opened his eyes, staring defiantly into Tony's, which were round now in surprise.

"Okay," Tony said shakily. "You're blue. Like, smurf blue."

Loki pursed his lips and scowled.

"So... _why_ are you blue, exactly?"

Tony's hand was still on his arm, though the grip was no longer bruising, as though he were afraid that Loki would slip through his hands if he let go. It was a valid concern.

"Because," Loki said, and his voice sounded strained even to his ears, "technically speaking, I am a Frost Giant. I was–" _abandoned_ "–adopted."

He watched Tony's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. "Oh. Oh man." Then he watched Tony shuffle from foot to foot uncomfortably. The human did not do well with touchy subjects. Loki sighed. "I mean... you're tall but. Giant?"

"Runt." His gaze cut down and to the side. "Hideous, I know."

"What?" Tony sounded genuinely surprised by that, and Loki frowned at him. He realized then that Tony's eyes were still following the edges of his face but there was no repulsion there. "No, no, I just wasn't expecting it." Tony touched Loki's face with one finger, moving seemingly at random, and Loki suspected that he was following the raised markings that accompanied this form. "I think it's kind of cool, actually." Tony's lips twitched up in a smile, and his head tilted to the left the way it did when he was considering something he found particularly fascinating.

The knot in Loki's stomach twisted until it felt hard as rock. "Stop it," he growled, swatting aside Tony's hand and ignoring the lump in his throat. "Frost giants are monsters, do you understand?" He knew he had no right to be snapping at Tony like this, but he couldn't help it. "Thor used to scare me as a child b-by saying that there was a door to Jotunheim under my bed! And... and not even the Jotnar wanted me because I was this – this tiny little _freak_."

His voice was cracking. Why was his voice cracking?

"So don't _tell_ me that it's _'cool_', when it means that I... that I..."

He could barely hear his voice over the ringing in his ears, but from the rawness of his throat, he must have been screaming. His throat closed off before he could finish this last sentence. He was breathing raggedly now, his fists clenched and shaking.

Tony had stepped back, eyes just shy of bugging out and hands palm out in a placating gesture. "Alright," he said. "Alright. I'm sorry. Hey."

Tony placed his hands on Loki's shoulders, moving slowly, cautiously, as though approaching a spooked animal. He squeezed and shook Loki by the shoulders when the god turned away.

"_Hey_," he said again, more firmly. "Look at me."

Loki looked up, and Tony's eyes were dark and focused and unblinking.

"Is this why you're so fucked up?"

Loki half laughed, half sobbed at the bluntness of the patently-Tony question.

Tony's hands moved to cup either side of Loki's jaw instead. "Look, I don't know what the Hell happened to make you think this, but you are not a-a _monster_ or a _freak_ or whatever the Hell other bullshit you seem to believe."

The cold air stung in Loki's eyes, and he blinked to dispel the moisture gathering there.

"You're _Loki._ There's no one else like you in the Universe, and I know you think that means you don't belong anywhere, but so what? That's their loss, not yours."

This was not right, that a human should be able to strike right at the heart of him and make him feel small and vulnerable in a way he hadn't since he was a child.

"And you could be magenta for all I care. I'd still want to do you."

Loki laughed breathlessly and twined his fingers with Tony's, holding the human's hands against his cheeks and feeling his warmth bleed into his own chilled skin, even through the gloves. From the slightest widening of Tony's eyes, Loki could tell that his skin was returning to Aesir pink.

And because he was Loki and couldn't allow himself to be vulnerable for long, he smirked and said, "Prove it."

Tony chuckled wickedly before pressing chapped lips to his with a fervor that Loki found pleasantly distracting, and he guided Loki back until the god felt the solid weight and rough surface of a tree behind him. Tony surrounded Loki with his weight and warmth, pressing hands and lips to every inch of exposed skin, eyeing him hungrily as the god's skin blossomed pink under his touch.

Then a snowball hit both of them squarely in the face, and they pulled away from each other, sputtering.

"Get a room!"

Loki turned to see Clint standing at the edge of their clearing, wearing a ridiculously large coat and hat combination that made him look like a human-sized balloon. From the roar of nearby laughter, Loki suspected that Thor was with him, likely standing just beyond the copse of trees.

Loki and Tony exchanged sidelong glances and matching smirks.

"Barton?" Loki called out sweetly, twisting his fingers behind his back in an incantation.

"Yeah, Frosty?" the human called back cheekily.

"You might want to run."

He finished the spell, and the snow around them coalesced into a snowball three yards in diameter and hovered threateningly in the air. Tony let out a low whistle.

"_Sweet mother of fuck!_" Clint squeaked. He started to scramble backwards along the snowdrifts. With a snap of his fingers, Loki sent the snowball careening in the human's direction.

Next to him, Tony was shaking with laughter, and judging by the blonde head only just visible around the edge of the trees, so was Thor. Watching the great bundle of coat running off with a massive snowball on his tail sent Loki into a fit of chuckles as well.

Still giggling, Tony grabbed Loki by the lapels and drew him into a kiss. "I love you," he said, still laughing.

As one, the two stiffened as it sank in what Tony had just said.

"Uh," Tony sputtered, eyes round as coins. He hastily jumped back and dug his hands into his pockets. "B-b-b-by which I mean, 'you're awesome'."

"Of course," Loki lamely agreed, fighting to ignore his sinking sense of disappointment. Of course, _of course_, Tony hadn't meant...

"Just a turn of phrase."

"Indeed."

"Like, 'I love ice cream' or 'I love American Idol'."

"Yes."

"Okay?"

"Okay."

"Good."

"Fine."

"Yeah."

"Quite."

Loki looked everywhere but at Tony, and his hands kept fidgeting with the edges of his clothing. He grappled for a distraction, and he got it in the form of Thor, who was ambling towards them now, eyeing them warily.

"Thor!" Tony chirped just as Loki said, "Brother!"

Thor stopped, and his brows furrowed under blond locks turned to icicles in the snow. "Is all well, my friends?" he asked.

"Just peachy," Tony answered, his voice an octave too high for anyone to take seriously. To Loki, he said, "I just remembered that I have this thing – "

"Oh, me too," Loki quickly answered. After a little more awkward shuffling, they smiled and scurried off in opposite directions.

* * *

><p>Thor walked with Tony back to the mansion.<p>

"Shit," Tony kept muttering under his breath. "Shit, shit, shit."

But when Thor asked him about it, the human merely shook his head and said, "I'm an idiot."

Thor frowned but knew better than to argue.

* * *

><p>Alone, in the cold, Loki whispered, "I love you, too," to the wind.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Footnote:<strong> A bit sappy for them, but the shit's gonna hit the fan in the next two chapters. :]


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N_: Long author's note is long. Blaaarg.

Firstly, thank you for all the comments, faves, etc. and, really, just for reading! If you've come this far, then you've likely been in this 'verse a while, which is in itself a major compliment. HUGS FOR EVERYONE! *sniffle*

Secondly, sorry for taking so long, but I was distracted by... other Loki-related things. I have discovered roleplaying Loki, and Tumblr will never be the same! :]

Thirdly and lastly, I wanted to address a specific comment that I couldn't provide a PM response to. To the commenter who wrote that my Loki is starting to get "ooc" from all the outbursts, I first want to thank you for your honesty: this is definitely something I will keep an eye out for. I would, however, like to point out two things: first, I'm condensing a relationship spanning months and months (and eventually years and years but shhhh) into these chapters, so I'm just hitting the "highlights" as it were, hence the consistent emotional intensity; secondly, Loki is in love, love makes Loki vulnerable, vulnerability scares Loki, scared Loki overcompensates by being angry, flaily Loki.

That's how it goes in my head anyway. Sry, I have OCD and _must_ analyze the crap out of stupid shit.

MOVING ON...

* * *

><p><strong>Love is a Four-Letter Word, Part I<strong>

Tony was screwed. And not in the fun way.

Well, okay yeah, in the fun way, too, but that wasn't the point.

The point was that he was fairly certain Loki had done something to him. Tony didn't know when or how, but he was fairly certain it had started a while back, gaining on him in creeping increments until finally he had looked, noticed, and thought, _well, shit, why didn't I see _that_ before?_

His thoughts weren't making sense and he knew it, but he was too busy trying not to hyperventilate.

"You're in love with him."

Pepper had been the one to point it out, stating it like it was this great, dawning revelation that made everything click into place. All rainbows and butterflies and the hills are alive with the sound of music –

Except for Tony the realization had the exact opposite effect, like with those words, she had tugged and tugged on a loose thread in the Sweater of Tony's Life until it had unraveled and unraveled and left nothing but a completely useless pile of yarn.

Okay, so his metaphors sucked. Whatever.

The _point_ was that Tony had been avoiding the "L" word like the plague it was, but hearing it from Pepper's lips was like a condemnation. He knew he couldn't run from it any longer.

"I'm not," he insisted anyway, because he was Tony Fucking Stark, with the heart of a machine, and he didn't _fall_ in love. "I just –"

– _love everything about him_.

The way he ate his popcorn on move nights, tearing apart the kernels before nibbling them, as though hoping to find the meaning of life inside – it drove Steve nuts, but Tony found it endearing.

The way he sprawled across Tony's bed like a long-limbed octopus. The way his feet twitched in his sleep, and the way he snapped and growled in a variety of languages in the morning until someone gave him his "godsdamned coffee".

The way he said, "The Google." The way he was puzzled by the internet's "Book of Faces".

The way his hair curled and frizzed in high humidity, and the way he glared at Tony each time he caught the human tugging on his spring-loaded curls.

The way he arched an eyebrow in an impressive, "Oh really?" face whenever Tony got too big for his britches. The way his nostrils flared whenever Tony was getting on his nerves, and the way he put up with the idiot human anyway.

The way he smiled affectionately and said, "You're a fool," when what he meant was –

Was –

_Oh_.

Pepper was grinning at him now.

"Stop it," he growled, trying to figure out what to do with this latest revelation.

Pepper's grin widened.

Tony closed his eyes in resignation. He was screwed.

* * *

><p>"Oh, Anthony, darling!" Loki knocked on Tony's workshop door, grinning. He'd much rather just teleport inside, but Tony had expressed his displeasure at this the last time, stating that Loki had scared the "bejeebus" out of him. Scaring out someone's "bejeebus" was not conducive to delicate work, apparently, and he had almost given poor Tony a heart attack.<p>

So knocking it was.

Moments passed in silence, and Loki frowned.

"Tony?" he called, knocking a second time. He pressed his ear to the door and finally heard sounds of movement from within. He smiled and drew back at the sound of familiar footsteps.

The footsteps stopped on the other side of the door, and the door opened a crack. The hallway illuminated the left side of Tony's face.

"Yeah?" he said. His voice sounded light, but he looked wary as he eyed Loki through the crack in the door.

Loki's brows knit at this. Usually Tony was eager to greet him, especially when they hadn't seen each other in a few days, but Loki decided to let it slide. For now.

"Would you be free for a movie night?" Loki asked, brandishing a DVD and hearing the disk rattle inside. "Steven informed me that that horrid movie we watched last week has a sequel, and I did so enjoy mocking the last one."

Loki saw this as a generous gesture on his part. "Movie Nights" were a decidedly Midgardian tradition that Loki was fairly ambivalent towards. He did not enjoy sitting idly for two hours, even if Tony made him popcorn and sat pleasantly pressed against him, but he knew that Tony needed such things to relax. He thought he'd compromise by getting a movie he knew he could verbally eviscerate.

Yet Loki recognized discomfort in the tap of Tony's fingers against the door, in the shift of weight from one foot to the other. His eyes narrowed at the obviously fake smile Tony offered him.

"That... that sounds great, Loki, but I'm kind of busy."

He was lying. Why was he lying?

Loki used magic to feel out the room behind Tony. He let out a breath he did not know he was holding when he saw that Tony was alone and had been alone in there for hours.

"We could do something else, if you prefer," Loki offered with a shrug, trying not to let this rejection sting. Tony might be his, but he was still a mortal. And no mortal should make him feel so foolish.

"I said I was busy, Loki," Tony suddenly snapped. The door slammed in his face, and Loki reeled back two steps.

He gawped at the closed door and, once the shock and indignation had sloughed off, felt anger wrap a hand around his throat.

* * *

><p>Tony slid down the wall until his rump hit the floor. "Oh, Tony, what're you doing," he murmured, running a hand through his hair.<p>

He knew Loki was going to make him regret that and winced when he heard what sounded like glass shattering.

"Sir –"

"Yeah, yeah, Jarvis, I know," Tony groused. "Leave him be."

* * *

><p>Three days later, Tony was still in his workshop (he had convinced Pepper to bring him a few TV dinners, though he could have done without the judging stare and the lecture). He was in desperate need of a shower and a shave. <em>Later<em>, he kept telling himself. By now his suits were upgraded, oiled, and polished, which only made him feel grungier in comparison.

He knew he was being a coward, that he was running away. He blasted Black Sabbath until he couldn't hear his own disparaging thoughts.

Steve knocked, Thor knocked, and Pepper knocked, but unless they were accompanied by food or coffee, he ignored them and turned up the music.

And then, on the third day, Loki knocked. Tony recognized his pattern, three raps from a single knuckle, and he could almost see the square knuckles and lithe fingers on the other side of the door. At first, Tony did not answer, and then came a second knock and Loki's voice.

"Tony."

Not a greeting or a question. A statement. A command.

Tony sighed and had Jarvis put on the intercom. "Yeah?" he said, sounding tired, calm, maybe even irritated.

"Your friends say you've been in there for days."

"Yeah?" Tony said again, because multiple syllables took too much effort.

A pause, long and uncomfortable, and then, softly, "Are you well?"

"I'm fine," Tony lied. Two syllables were manageable, he supposed.

Another pause, and Tony knew Loki was struggling. To him, showing concern – _real_ concern – was synonymous with showing vulnerability. Somewhere past the numbness and the worry, Tony felt... _warm_, knowing that Loki was at least trying.

But Tony was just as afraid of being vulnerable, so he said, "Just leave me alone, Loki."

Silence followed, and Tony closed his eyes, knowing that Loki had done just that.

_You're going to lose him if you're not careful_, Tony told himself.

But in a way, that would solve the problem. The path of least resistance.

He hated himself for even considering it.

* * *

><p>Loki prowled about his apartment, entertaining himself and blowing off steam by using his toaster as target practice. After being bounced around the room, the appliance exploded in a confetti of metal bits. Loki smiled tightly in something akin to satisfaction and returned to his pacing, feeling toaster-remnants crunch underfoot.<p>

"I am a god," he growled to himself. "A _king_ among gods."

And Tony Stark seemed to have forgotten that.

Loki would wait this out, wait for the human to come crawling back to him, to beg forgiveness on his knees like any human should.

_And if he doesn't_? a voice sneered inside his head.

Loki closed his eyes and pressed his thumb and middle finger to his temples. "He will," he told himself with conviction he didn't feel.

_What if he tires of you?_

"He won't."

_You know he is going to eventually. Why not now?_

Loki sat heavily at the kitchen table and buried his face in his hands.

This was the point where normally he would lay waste to a small city, hunt giants with Thor, or carry out a particularly malicious prank. To distract himself from the boredom, the stillness... from himself.

But he knew he could not do any of those things. Not without compromising what he had with Tony.

Acknowledging this rankled.

"You've let a human tame you," he murmured to himself.

* * *

><p>"Agent Coulson," Fury said. The agent addressed perked up and watched him attentively. They were nearing the end of the presentation, and Fury just wanted to get this last section over with so that he could go home, put up his feet, and watch TV. "If you would be so kind as to put up the overview of Project Theta..."<p>

The play of lights behind him shifted, which he could see reflected off the black surface of the table in front of him, and Fury cleared his throat, ready to continue.

Except that music suddenly blared from the speakers: "_Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down..._"

Fury closed his eye and took deep, calming breaths. Next to him, Coulson was staring at the screen, eyes wide in surprise but lips pressed firmly together as though to keep from laughing.

"What the Hell is this?" Fury growled to him.

Coulson shrugged helplessly and said, "We appear to have been Rick Roll'd, sir."

Around the table, heads were bowed in quiet laughter.

"More like Loki'd," Fury growled. "Shut the damn thing off."

* * *

><p>Safely ensconced in invisibility, Loki watched Fury's expression and chuckled, feeling much better.<p>

* * *

><p>"Director Fury on the line for you, sir."<p>

"Wonderful," Tony groused. "Thanks, Jarvis. Put 'im on speaker."

He continued dishing out hot dogs – it was his night to cook, which meant that sulking was no longer an option, if a certain archer and thunder god had anything to say for it – and Clint and Thor crowded him around the counter, eyeing the food like a pair of dogs vying for table scraps. Tony shook his head and tried to swat them away.

"Shoo," he said. "Play dead."

"Mr. Stark," came Fury's voice over the speaker. He sounded strained, likely irritated, but Tony expected no different.

"Fury," Tony sighed in reply, smacking Thor's hand away as the god tried to steal a hot dog. "Wash your hands first, kiddies," he said to Thor and Clint.

"You need to keep closer tabs on your boyfriend," Fury said, and Tony froze. He and Thor exchanged worried looks.

_Oh, God,_ Tony thought. _Please don't tell me he killed someone._

"What did he do?" he asked, turning to address the room at large.

Clint took advantage of his distraction to nab and start munching happily on a hot dog. He paused, mid-chew, to slather it with ketchup.

There was a long pause, during which Tony feared the worst.

"He Rick Roll'd us during a presentation."

Clint choked on his hot dog and doubled over, half coughing, half laughing. Thor eyed him in bemusement and patted him on the back until the human had stopped choking. Tony was little better, his own shoulders shaking with laughter.

"Oh, God," Tony choked out. "Dammit, Fury! You made me think he had gone over to the dark side again, or something."

"Rick Rolling?" Clint chortled. "If that's not the dark side, I don't know what is!"

"What is this 'Rick Rolling'?" Thor asked, brows knit in confusion.

"It's not funny," Fury ground out.

"It's a little funny," Tony insisted.

"It's a breach of security!" Fury snapped.

"Oh, come on!" Tony replied. "Of all the things he could have done, he went for something completely harmless. He was probably just bored. Will you relax?"

"Mr. Stark," Fury said in a tone that brooked no argument. "You are to make it clear to your boy-toy that messing around with government facilities is no laughing matter."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll send him a memo."

Fury clicked off without so much as a good-bye.

"What is this Rick Roll'd?" Thor asked again with considerably less patience.

Tony snickered and shook his head.

"Shall I call Mr. Laufeyson?" Jarvis asked.

Tony almost said, "Yes," only to stop and think about it for a moment. "No, I..." he said instead, "I'll talk to him later."

Thor eyed him strangely, but Tony just went back to dealing with the hot dogs.

* * *

><p><strong>Footnote:<strong> If you don't know what Rick Rolling is, I envy you. *points at google*


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N:_ Angst ahoy, darlings. xD

* * *

><p><strong>Love is a Four-Letter Word, Part II<strong>

Loki stared at the Stark phone on his counter as though it held the secrets to the meaning of life. His fingers were steepled in front of his face, his index fingers tapping idly against his lips.

Two weeks had passed, and Loki desperately wanted to call Tony, to teleport in front of him, to hear him, to see him, to screw him and then strangle him within an inch of his life.

But no. Tony had to come to _him_, to beg, preferably on his knees.

Patience was not one of Loki's virtues.

* * *

><p>The desk reverberated, and Tony woke with a start. Who needed an alarm when you had Pepper dropping heavy books by your head?<p>

"You're an idiot."

Tony snuffled and blinked owlishly up at Pepper. She stood over him, smartly dressed and hair coifed, with one hand on her cocked hip and the other tapping a staccato rhythm against his desk.

Tony rubbed the sleep from his eyes and felt creases in his cheek where it had been pressed into the keyboard.

"I wasn't aware this was news to you," he said. "_How_ long have you been working for me?"

"Too long," she snapped, folding her arms across her chest and pursing her lips in a look that Tony knew meant trouble. He eyed her warily.

"What did I do this time?" he asked.

"You have to _ask_?"

Tony stared down at his hands, picking lint off the keyboard.

"You realize you're in love with Loki and, what, you decide that's it? Time to call it quits?"

"No," Tony answered, though his voice sounded weak even to him.

Pepper bent further over him to look into his face. "Tony," she said, anger softening to exasperation, "you need to stop running from this. Your commitment issues aside, you need to remember that you've had something of a stabilizing effect on Loki."

Tony eyed her doubtfully.

"Not that he'd admit it," Pepper continued wryly. "But think about it. Ever since you two became official, he stopped with the whole super-villain thing. Do you realize that? You give him something that he apparently needed, and if you keep pushing him away..." Pepper trailed off, her eyes wide as she shook her head.

"Great," Tony muttered. "So if I screw this up, it will be _my_ fault when he tries to take over the world again?"

Pepper closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "Tony," she said, "that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that he needs you." She leaned into his face and added, "So man up."

Pepper turned and left, her heels clicking against stone.

Tony stared off into the middle distance. She was right, and he knew that, but...

Later, he decided. He would fix things later.

* * *

><p>Cloaked in invisibility, Loki stood on the sidewalk and let out a shuddering sigh, letting the sights-sounds-chaos wash over him. His apartment was silent and still as the grave. Neither Midgardian music nor television appealed to him, but for hours he had blared both at the same time just to combat the emptiness. After a while even this had become little more than white noise to him, and he was afraid, so afraid of the stillness that would follow.<p>

For months, Tony Stark had been his distraction, infatuating, infuriating – an endless puzzle. If Tony knew how often Loki had secretly watched his movements, his ticks and mannerisms, and wanted to take the human's mind apart and put it back together just to see how it worked, he would likely run far, far away.

And now Loki had to do without his favorite distraction, and in the wake of boredom and silence came something much darker.

For a while, the sensory overload of the crowds soothed him and stilled the trembling in Loki's hands. But then night came, and the crowd thinned and thinned until...

Stillness.

Shadows twisted away from streetlights and passing headlights, and in the blackness, Loki saw the Void, the between-worlds he had fallen through for centuries and seconds. The night was warm, but he shivered.

_Look what this human has reduced you to_, a part of him, angry – always angry – said, disgusted. _And you _let_ him._

"Hush," Loki murmured, passing a hand over his eyes. Even his voice shook.

_Always so weak._

"Shut up."

_Weak compared to Thor, now weak compared to a gods-forsaken _human.

"Shut up!"

A man walking by jumped and stared out into the night for a moment, bewildered. He walked on uncertainly, and Loki's stare bore into his back.

"I'm not weak," he murmured.

_Then prove it._

Loki closed his eyes against a wince. "I don't need to," he said. There was no conviction in his voice.

_Look at you. He's _tamed_ you._

And Loki thought about everything he had been avoiding for so long.

"Odin's beard," Loki murmured. He had given up playing the "super-villain", his way of life, for the approval of a mere mortal.

_A mortal who has abandoned you_.

No human should have that kind of power over him, and it was time to snap out of it. Tony was obviously pushing him away, and it was about time the human realized – and that Loki convinced himself – that he was not nearly as important to the god as his big head seemed to think.

_You know who you are. _What_ you are._

Loki felt magic crackle at his fingertips and set a car aflame with a snap of his fingers. He laughed, high and hysterical, at the shrieks of passers-by and watched the humans scatter like a flock of pigeons.

Tears settled into the creases of his smile as he set two more cars ablaze. The fire was bright enough to banish much of the darkness, to banish the faceless demons that haunted Loki's sleep.

Loki hated this spiteful, destructive part of himself, but it was the part that was most familiar, the part the prophecies told him he would embrace whether he wanted to or not.

He stared into the flames and felt the heat lick over his face. With a snap of his fingers, the building behind him exploded, glass and debris plinking harmlessly against his personal bubble.

"Try to ignore _this_, Tony."

* * *

><p>The mansion trembled, photos and coffee mugs jangling against the walls like chattering teeth, and Tony sighed, pushing his plate away from the edge as he extricated his toast from the toaster. He paused in the middle of buttering his toast when he remembered that he was in New York, not California, and that New England didn't <em>have<em> earthquakes as a general rule.

"Avengers," came Fury's voice over the intercom. Tony closed his eyes and bit back a groan. "There is a high-powered super-villain creating an artificial earthquake downtown. We're gonna need all of you on this."

"Who's the target?" Tony asked between hurried bites of toast.

A long, long pause that made Tony's blood run cold. "Stark," Fury said in a voice that was slightly less snippy than usual. "It's Loki."

Steve jostled him two minutes later, telling him to put down the damn toast and suit up.

* * *

><p><em>Did I do this?<em> Tony wondered as he stared up at the green-and-black clad figure hovering far above them. Guilt and panic were hot lead in the pit of his stomach.

He hovered just above the ground, which trembled and bucked beneath him. The others struggled to keep their footing, legs wide and bent, arms out for balance. Thor hovered in the air next to him, and Tony exchanged a glance with him, grateful that the face plate hid the guilt he was certain was painted all over his face.

"We're going to need to subdue him," Steve said grimly.

At that, Tony finally found his voice. "No!" He grabbed Steve's wrist as he reached for his shield. "Just give me a chance to talk to him."

Steve exchanged glances with the others, and Tony tried not to bristle at the look of mistrust on his cowled face. "Tony," he said, "we've been here before. Not even Thor can – "

"Well, I'm not Thor!" Tony shouted. Thor looked pained, but Tony didn't have time to soothe any bruised egos. "Just two minutes. _Please_."

Steve was already shaking his head. "Tony, I know you think you can help, but did it ever occur to you that maybe this whole time Loki was just –?"

"_Steve_," Tony said in a low, biting growl. His grip tightened on the Captain's wrist, and Steve's expression grew wary. "You're my best friend and I love you, but if you finish that sentence, I will kick your ass into next Tuesday."

Steve frowned but said nothing. He exchanged glances with Thor, who nodded. "Two minutes," he said.

Tony was in the air before Steve had even finished speaking. He stopped when he was level with Loki and guided his suit to hover in front of him. He readied to bolt if need be, but Loki didn't even acknowledge his presence. Green eyes stared at the ground, hollow, glassy, and haunted.

"Loki," he murmured. His suit carried the sound, but Loki didn't respond. Tony looked down, and the earth still cracked and rumbled and trembled far below. He looked at Loki and saw him trembling too.

Tony edged closer, fighting to stay steady directly in front of Loki's face.

"_Loki_," he said, louder, firmer.

Green eyes blinked and shifted to stare somewhere over his shoulder, but they still held that glossy, unfocused look. Concern wound crushing fingers around his heart.

Tony steadied himself with one arm out for balance and used the other to gently cup Loki's chin and swivel the Trickster's head until he was looking directly at Tony's iron mask. He wished he had a hand free to lift his visor.

Loki blinked, once, twice, and drew in a gasping, shuddering breath as though waking from a dream. He still looked confused and uncertain, but his eyes cleared at they stared at the human.

"Tony," Loki said in a shaking voice. This close, Tony could see the fine sheen of sweat on Loki's face.

"Hey," Tony said softly, still holding Loki's chin. "You want to tell me what's going on?"

Loki looked around him dazedly as though seeing his surroundings for the first time, his brows furrowing in confusion.

"I just... needed something," he murmured, and Tony had to strain to hear.

The earth was still shaking.

"Okay," Tony said, again guiding Loki by the chin to look at him. "Why don't we shut off the magic for a bit?"

Something dark and ugly flashed behind Loki's eyes at that, and Tony tensed to bolt again. "Why?" the Trickster asked innocently.

"Because I think you need a rest," Tony said with a calm that he did not feel.

And it was true. Loki's skin was pale as death, his cheeks sunken and drawn. Tony suspected he hadn't been sleeping or eating, and Tony had learned enough about magic over the past few months to know that Loki was using an alarming amount of energy. At the rate he was going, without a magical conduit like the scepter, Loki would be a dried out husk before long.

"Loki, please," he said, not caring when his desperation bled through into his voice.

A sharp, hyena-like giggle bubbled up from Loki's chest. Loki's expression was split. His lips were twisted wide in a manic smile, but his eyes were red and wide with terror. _Help me_, that face said, and Tony wanted to press that face between his hands and cradle it against his chest, to hold on and never let go while the world went to hell around him. But Loki was too hard, his outline all barbed edges, and Tony was left suspended in anticipation of a comforting gesture that he would probably never give.

"But I need the chaos," Loki said in a voice that shook and shook. "Don't you see? All this world is flat and boring and _so predictable_." The smile trembled, the eyes widened, glossy and far away. "I can _see_ so much that no one else does, and it's just _too much_, and I need – _I need –_ it to stop, and sweet, sweet _chaos _is never boring and predictable! But_ you – _"

Loki lifted Tony's mask and brushed a hand over Tony's cheek, fingers light and trembling, and that frightening expression shifted, changed into something soft and desperate and _please Tony save me from myself_ –

"_You_," Loki continued softly, reverently, "are never boring."

Then Loki cupped Tony's face with both hands and held on, staring, staring, as though Tony's face were the only thing anchoring him in the universe of sanity. For all Tony knew, it probably was.

And that was sobering. Like, he-would-probably-never-be-able-to-get-drunk-again sobering, and he and Steve could go have some pointless drinking parties together and –

Tony wasn't used to having someone needing him like this. God, this is why he didn't do relationships. Relying on him was like building on a sand foundation or... or using a house of cards as a TV stand.

Then Tony looked into those desperate, tear-rimmed eyes and thought that maybe – just maybe – with the right kind of balance and weight distribution, this house of cards could hold up that godsdamn TV after all. If anyone could do it, it would be Tony Motherfucking Stark, genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist.

Except the "playboy" part was out, wasn't it?

"Loki," he said, cupping the god's hands with his. Words failed him beyond that.

Loki grip turned crushing, and Tony winced as long fingers pressed bruises into his cheeks. Loki's eyes were wide and dark and wild. "You left me," he said in a brittle hiss, white teeth bared in a snarl.

"No!" Tony sputtered before those fingers could leave dents in his skull. The grip stayed bruising but pressed no deeper. "I just... I just panicked! I wouldn't leave you."

Tony stared into Loki's eyes and squeezed his hands, praying that the god would believe him.

"Then why have you been avoiding me?" Loki said in a tremulous hiss.

"I haven't –" _been avoiding you_, Tony started to say, but the green fire in Loki's eyes burned into his skull. He looked away but could still feel their weight. "Okay, I have. I _have_. I'm sorry." Loki dialed down the glare a notch but still kept the human pinned under his gaze. "It's just that I'm..."

_I'm terrified_.

"You're what?" Loki ground out. His voice was brittle and sharp, like a handful of broken glass.

Tony swallowed. "I'm a coward," he said. "When it comes to this stuff, anyway."

And wasn't that just ironic? Tony Stark, consummate daredevil, terrified of jumping headlong into something that couldn't actually kill him. No physically, anyway. God, but he'd take bungee jumping without a bungee cord over this any day of the week.

Loki's eyes narrowed, but his head tilted in a question. "'This stuff'?"

"Relationships," Tony clarified, trying not to squirm under Loki's gouging fingers. "You and me."

"Why is this an issue, _now_?" Loki snapped, shaking him. "You were fine – _seemed_ fine – with it all these months! What, pray tell, has _changed_?"

And beneath the anger and the craziness, Tony saw that Loki was scared too. Scared of losing _him_, of all things. Knowing that somehow made it easier.

"What has changed," Tony said softly, forcing himself to say the words, "is that now I... I think I love you."

He had to push the "L" word through his lips. It sounded ridiculously sappy, but he knew no other word would do.

Loki stared at him, his grip easing a fraction. No reaction at first other than widened eyes and lips parted in a sharp intake of breath. Then his breath started to turn quick and shallow, his eyes glittering with the threat of tears. "Is this a trick?" he asked in an angry, strangled voice.

Tony could _see_ the walls Loki was frantically putting up around himself. The god's hands went to Tony's throat instead.

"How dare you. How dare you!" Loki shrieked, pressing, _pressing_ so that the metal twisted under his fingers and into Tony's throat. Tony gagged, eyes round and frightened, as he stared at Loki.

"What? No!" he croaked. He reached for Loki's arms, but the god jerked away as though burned. It eased the pressure on Tony's neck, but Loki's fingerprints were still pressed into the metal. "Dammit, Loki! _Look at me_!"

Loki's eyes darted about like a cornered animal's but eventually landed on him, still wide and wary and wet with potential tears.

"Loki," Tony said more gently. "I'm not lying. I'm not – I'm not _messing_ with you. I love you. It scares the shit out of me, and it's all _seriously_ fucked up, but – I _love_ you. I do."

The words felt less foreign to him the more he said them. Something in Loki's expression wavered, and Tony pressed his advantage.

"Look, I'm sorry I've been such an ass," he said. "You didn't deserve that. It's just that – it kind of freaked me out. I mean, I cared about Pepper back in the day, but you are..." _– infuriating-wonderful-beautiful-broken-cynical-clever – _"Everything."

More cracks in Loki's facade, and Tony could see the broken, fragile heart through the chinks. Tony cupped his face with both hands as though he could physically hold Loki together.

"I love you," he said again, because it had never been truer than in that moment.

Cold lips against his. Bruising. Suffocating. _Perfect_.

Loki's grip was painfully tight, against the back of his head and around his waist. He kept pace with the god but countered his ferocity and desperation with a tenderness he usually avoided.

Then Loki pulled back sharply with a pained breath, fingers pressing dents into the metal suit's shoulders, and Tony felt him shaking more violently than before. He looked down and remembered that the earth was still quaking.

"O-okay, Lokes," he said with a shaky smile. "Can we turn off the magic now?"

"Tony," Loki said in a small, strangled voice. "I..."

Loki's eyes rolled back into his skull, and the magic around them dissipated, snapping like a taut elastic. Tony caught Loki about the waist as he started to fall, cradling the limp form to his chest as he slowly descended.

He didn't even notice that the world had stopped shaking.


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: _As of today,_ Nine Lives_ has reached 700 reviews, and I just. I can't get over it. You guys are so amazing.

I was told I should reward you with a new chapter, so here! Take it! TAKE IT!

* * *

><p><strong>The Exception to the Rule<strong>

"Mr. Stark," Fury said as he pressed his hands flat to the desk and leaned forward, casting a long, one-eyed shadow over the seated Avenger, "your _boyfriend_ just tried to decimate the city, and your response is '_oops_'?"

Tony shrugged helplessly and smiled. Probably not the best response, all things considered, but Tony Stark had never exactly been known for his tact.

"The deal," Fury said, still slowly, over-enunciating, "was that we would expunge Loki's record _only_ if he didn't pull this kind of shit again."

"Temporary insanity?" Tony suggested with another shrug. Fury's single eye narrowed.

"'Temporary'?" Fury echoed dryly. Tony conceded the point. "Look, Stark. He broke our deal. I'm just giving you the courtesy of telling you that he's going to be locked up and tried for his crimes."

Tony picked at a scratch along the corner of the desk. "And _I_," he said blithely, innocently, "am just giving you the courtesy of telling you that no, he isn't." He bared his teeth in a sharp smile.

Fury pulled back. "_Excuse_ me?" he growled.

"Did you not hear me?" Tony asked sweetly. "Your hearing must be going in your old age. I'd suggest a hearing aid so that you –"

"_Stark_."

Tony smiled softly, bitterly, and stared up at Fury across the desk for two long seconds, his pounding heartbeat filling the silence.

"You will give Loki another chance," he said, "or I will quit the Avengers, not just as Iron Man, but as Tony Stark. I will withdraw my funding, my home, my weapons."

Fury pursed his lips and his one eye glittered with anger.

"You do that," he replied, "and I will have you convicted of treason."

"Ah, now see, fun fact," Tony said, maintaining the mocking air of buoyancy that he knew irritated Fury. "One of the great things about America? The Founding Fathers made it _very_ difficult to convict someone of treason. You know why? Because technically, _they_ had been guilty of treason, and they thought that the people should be allowed to defy the government if and when the government was ever being stupid."

He gave Fury a pointed look at this last word.

Fury grit his teeth. "Do you know what's also illegal?" he asked. "Being a vigilante."

"Ah," Tony said, sitting back in his chair, "but, see, what jury is going to convict a national hero?"

Tony and Fury stared at each other for a long moment.

"Look," Tony said softly. "I'm just asking you to give him one more chance, alright? I know he did some major damage, but... you can't contain him, anyway. You _know_ that!" He paused to take a deep breath. "And... I dunno, maybe I'm crazy thinking this, but I think – I _think_ – that I'm getting through to him."

"Tony," Fury started to say.

"No, come on, just – just let me have one more shot. I won't mess this up, I promise. Not this time."

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he wondered if he was telling this to Fury or to Loki.

Fury gave him a measuring look, and Tony knew he had won when the director blew out a heavy sigh.

"I'm going to regret this," he muttered. "Just keep him on a tighter leash this time." Then he turned to leave.

"Kinky," Tony said to Fury's retreating back. "I like it."

* * *

><p>In hindsight, Tony supposed it was only a matter of time. Even so, if there was ever a time he wished he could murder the paparazzi, it would be now.<p>

It'd been a while since he'd been bombarded like this, swarmed from all sides, just as he was walking to the car. When the first question about his relationship with Loki came, he found it hard not to cringe.

_Fucking vultures._

"I really don't think that's any of your business," he snapped at the sea of faces, hiding his reaction behind a pair of sunglasses and wearing them like armor. Happy helped him push his way to the car.

Of _course_ they knew. He'd kissed Loki in the middle of the air, at the epicenter of a god-made catastrophe. He hadn't thought about the people below, about the cameras pointed up; he'd only thought about Loki, _Loki_, and boy, did that scare him. He was supposed to be a hero, and he hadn't even thought about the lives he was supposed to be saving.

He wondered how far he would go for Loki, how much he would do, and prayed that the god didn't take advantage.

* * *

><p>The first thing Tony did when he got home was to pour himself a glass of scotch. The second was to drink it. The third was to ask the room at large, "How is he?"<p>

"Still fatigued and dehydrated, sir," Jarvis answered, "but he is awake."

Tony nodded to himself, staring into the now-empty tumbler in his hand and the way the light refracted off the cut glass. He set it down with a heavy _thunk_. "Tell him I'm coming up," he said and headed for the stairs.

Loki was sitting up in bed, reading, when Tony walked in, and he had to wonder if the god had been like that for a while or if he had hastened to look alert when Jarvis had announced his presence. The thought of Loki scrambling to fix his bedhead was a thought that made Tony bow his head to hide a smile.

"Hey," he said, pausing to lean against the doorway.

Loki flipped the page. "Good morning."

Tony regarded him over the book's binding, the pallor of hollow cheeks, the dark circles of his eyes. A saline drip was miraculously still in place for once, and Tony was grateful that he wouldn't have to have _that_ argument again. Loki's eyes met his over the book then, and his brows furrowed in a combination of irritation and confusion.

"Can I help you?" he asked dryly. Tony smiled.

"Just got back from SHIELD," he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He approached the bed, watched Loki tilt his head back to continue meeting his gaze.

Loki eyed him for a long moment and hummed in consideration. "And things went well, I see."

Tony tilted his head in a question.

"You're not a blubbering mess," Loki clarified with a smirk. He turned back to his book, but Tony knew he wasn't actually reading.

Tony chuffed and shook his head but did not argue. "Yeah, yeah, it went well," he said, and Loki's smirk twitched higher. "Took some fancy negotiating on my part, but... same deal as before, only no second chances. Or... third chances, I guess."

Loki laughed derisively, eyes still glued to his book. "It's getting more difficult to even pretend to take SHIELD's threats seriously."

"Loki," Tony said in a warning tone.

Loki looked askance at him. "And if I don't want the 'same deal'?"

Tony did not like the sound of that, but then he realized from the glint in his eye that Loki was just being contrary. "Then I'll stop getting the Poptarts you like."

Loki put a hand over his heart in mock horror. "Now that is most – how do you put it – _cruel _and_ unusual_!"

"Well, I suppose there are other ways I could punish you." Tony knelt on the bed beside Loki and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Loki laughed but did not rise to the bait. "I don't know whether to be impressed or worried," Loki said, "that you were able to talk SHIELD out of trying to arrest me."

"You're not the only one who's good with words," Tony answered, preening. "I talked my way into your pants, if I recall."

"You _drank_ your way into my pants," Loki corrected dryly, arching one eyebrow.

"Well yeah, but that just makes you sound even easier."

Loki swatted Tony's arm with the book.

Tony laughed and leaned forward, crawling over Loki on all fours, palms flat to the mattress on either side of the god's head. He bent to press a kiss at the corner of Loki's jaw.

"So you love me, hmm?" Loki asked in a low purr, sliding one hand up and around Tony's neck, fingers sieving through the short hairs at the nape.

Tony winced, cleared his throat and pulled back to look at Loki. "Yeah," he said, because the cat was out of the bag (so to speak), and he might as well just own up to it. "Yeah, I do."

Loki's smile curled higher, and he hummed appreciatively. Tony pulled back further, arching one eyebrow in a question. And no, he was not holding his breath, not at all. Loki's smile wilted at that look, and his eyes widened as he apparently realized what Tony was silently asking.

"The... feeling," he said haltingly, running one hand up Tony's bicep and staring at the contrast of skin on skin to avoid staring into questioning brown eyes, "is... _mutual_."

Tony rolled his eyes and sat back on his haunches. "'The feeling is mutual'," he mimicked snootily. "Oh, come _on_."

Loki scowled as he pushed himself upright. "_What_?" he sneered.

"I'm not having anymore of this dancing around the issue," Tony insisted, shaking his head. "Look what happened when _I_ tried to avoid saying things. Look, just... if you _don't_, yet or ever, that's fine-" _not fine, not fine at all, but Loki wasn't the only liar here_ "-but if you _do_, then _say_ it."

He watched the bob of Loki's Adam's apple as he swallowed, his eyes just this side of too wide, like a cornered animal that's trying not to let on that it's frightened. Tony wondered if he really should be pushing this, but something deep in his gut told him that Loki needed this, that Loki was just as afraid of the word as he was for different but similar reasons.

Loki started to shake his head, to let his gaze skitter far and wide, and Tony grabbed his hand to ground him. "Hey," he said softly. "I'll love you no matter what. And if you're not there yet, just tell me, but _don't_ say that just to get out of saying the 'L' word. Now. Do you love me?"

"Tony – "

"Do. You love me?" He tried to keep his expression soft and open, nonjudgmental.

"Stop it!" Loki growled, wrenching his hand away. "You do not dictate what I can and cannot say, _human_!"

Tony frowned at the epithet, but he knew Loki well enough by now to read genuine panic in his words. "Loki," he murmured, keeping his voice soft to encourage Loki to lower his, "what are you afraid of?"

Loki stared at him with eyes wild and dark, emotions melting, shifting, changing, through chameleon green. "You don't know," he answered in a ragged hiss. "The things I love," he continued, "the people I love... they either leave me, end up dead or I corrupt them beyond redemption! That's the pattern, you see. I'm meant to destroy the world, remember? That's what the Norns told me, Tony. The _pattern_. My _fate_. I'm the sick, twisted creature that hates the nine worlds enough to destroy them, and it happens _again and again_."

Tony swallowed down the guilt and panic bubbling up his throat, wondering if he'd opened a dam, if Loki would shake apart in front of him.

"Hey," he whispered. "Hey, hey." Then he was cradling Loki's face and wondering how the hell two such fucked-up people could have ended up together. "The pattern also says that I just chase after the first ass I see, that I am incapable of falling in love, but you, _you_, are the exception to that rule. Let me be the exception to yours." Loki's eyes were over-bright and so so green as Tony stared into them, his own eyes promising solidity, strength, _home_. "Now," he tried again, softly, softly, "do you love me?"

Tony felt Loki's jaw muscles flutter under his palms. In a small voice, "Tony."

"Yes or no, Loki."

"Yes," Loki answered grittily. "You bloody fool." He closed his eyes, and Tony pressed his grinning lips to Loki's eyelids.

"Then you can say it," he murmured as he pulled back.

A breath, and then, "I love you. Satisfied?"

Tony breathed out a shuddering sigh of relief, and then he kissed Loki deeply, desperately. Loki kissed back with equal hunger, fingers digging bruises into Tony's shoulder-blades.

"Now don't expect me to ever say it again," Loki growled when they paused for air.

"Oh, you will," Tony answered against Loki's lips. "Get over it."

Loki huffed indignantly but did not argue.

* * *

><p>In the end, Tony called a press conference where he announced three things: yes, he was still with the Avengers; yes, he <em>was<em> dating Loki; and, no, he would not be taking any questions.

The room, once quiet save for the click of cameras, now erupted into a sea of noise. Tony smiled and slipped on his shades, turning his back to the crowd.


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N:_ Things will be more one-shot-y again after this. And a little funnier. And then angstier again. Because of reasons.

Also, BRUCE next chapter! Nyahaha!

* * *

><p><strong>Consequences<strong>

Tony knew he'd been an idiot to think that he and Loki could get through this without any more trouble from the press. The next press conference he held was supposed to be about the development of a new piece of technology from Stark Industries. Instead, it had focused on the development in Stark's love life.

A crowd had gathered in protest (of _him_, he realized, and that was a jarring realization), and just when he thought he was free from the press, he had to contend with the people. The reporters and cameramen stuck around to watch.

Tony plastered on his best "media-friendly" smile, but there was so much _anger_ in the crowd for Loki, for the destruction he had wrought with his little... _tantrum_.

Tony tried to make excuses, to calm things down, but he only ended up getting booed.

"My wife was killed in that earthquake."

The crowd quieted as a burly man stepped forward. The cameras' glare shone in bright spots off the top of his shaven head and off the unshed tears gleaming in his eyes. His hands were clenched and his lips pursed and trembling.

"You're telling me," he said, "that that _monster_ isn't going to get his due because he's trouncing around with some billionaire playboy?"

The crowd turned to Tony again with shouts and jeers, and all words stuck in his throat. "I'm sorry," he said, but the burly widower merely closed his eyes and shook his head.

Happy managed to escort Tony out as the crowd started throwing tomatoes at his face.

* * *

><p>Tony hid himself away in his workshop (though he preferred the word "sequestered") and let Pepper deal with the company. He couldn't face the outside world right now, not like this, not when he wasn't sure if he was feeling guilty for siding with Loki or guilty for thinking of <em>not<em> siding with Loki, if only for a moment.

He was trying to keep himself busy when JARVIS announced that Loki was en route, and Tony cursed under his breath, though he'd known he couldn't hide out here forever. He told JARVIS to unlock the door for him, and that door was sliding open a moment later.

"Hey," Tony called over his shoulder, tried to sound cheery and to look busy. He sat at his desk and fiddled with the graphics for his latest suit design, trying to incorporate an anti-magic shield that wouldn't cancel out what little magic _he_ had available (thank you, Loki). Mostly he just kept adding and deleting the same part over and over again.

He heard Loki sigh directly behind him.

"It bothers you," Loki said. His expression was inscrutable when Tony turned to look at him.

"What bothers me?" Tony asked, playing innocent. Loki merely raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. Tony deflated at that look and shrugged, rubbed the back of his neck and fidgeted in his seat. "Well, yeah, it bothers me," he muttered. "I mean, people _died_, Loki. People that meant something to other people."

He watched Loki for a reaction as he said this, and Loki's stare dropped from his, his expression still as stone, closed off. Tony both hated and envied that he could do that.

"What does it matter?" Loki mumbled, toying with a now-cold cup of coffee on the edge of the desk. "They were only -"

"If you finish that sentence with 'mortals', we are _through_, do you understand?" Tony snapped. Loki closed his mouth and pursed his lips, looking down and away. "We only have the one life, you know," Tony said. "We don't get a 'do-over' like you gods. This is it. In a way, that makes our lives more valuable than yours, don't you think?"

Loki grit his teeth and rubbed at his forehead. "Are you _trying_ to make me feel guilty, Tony?" he growled.

"I think it would be a good start, yeah," Tony snapped. "You haven't exactly shown much remorse."

"Well, you and I come from two very different upbringings, Tony," Loki answered just as sharply, "in _case_ you've forgotten."

"Oh, no, you're _constantly_ reminding me." Tony pushed himself to his feet and started to pace, his back to Loki. Seeing Loki this _cold_ over something that was still keeping him up at night bothered him. It bothered him more than the earthquake itself, than the mess with the tesseract. He could forgive doing something stupid as long as Loki actually felt _guilty_ for it.

Loki stared at his back, and Tony watched him in the reflection off the glass of a window pane, watched his shoulders sag, watched him visibly deflate. He watched Loki cast about with a lost look in his eyes, mask slipping now that he thought Tony couldn't see. And that hurt too, the way Loki guarded himself so carefully. _Pot, meet kettle_, Tony thought and knew he couldn't blame Loki for it.

"What do you want me to do, Tony?" Loki asked. He sounded resigned. "Turn myself in?"

Tony closed his eyes and blew out a sigh, turning slowly to face Loki again. "No, of course not," he said, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyelids. "I just want this nightmare to be over."

Loki did not respond, but his eyes flickered about the way they did when he was scheming. Tony decided not to dwell on it.

* * *

><p>Tony watched Pepper field the press and the rioting crowd from the safety of his living room, face lit with the glow of the TV and mind blurred with the haze of alcohol. Light glinted off the cut glass of the tumbler in his hand, off the surface of the newly-refilled scotch and refracted into tiny kaleidoscopes of color that moved and morphed along the walls in time to the slow rotation of the glass.<p>

Pepper was getting frustrated, he knew, could tell from the nervous way she kept tucking her hair behind her ear. He could also hear a touch of fear in her voice, and he felt guilty then, knowing that he'd thrown her into the line of fire just to save his own cowardly ass.

And then the crowd went deadly silent, and Tony leaned forward, elbows on his knees, to better squint at the screen.

"What crimes are you accusing me of?"

It took Tony's alcohol-fogged mind a long moment to recognize the smooth, clear voice as Loki's. By then the screen had blurred and refocused as the camera panned to the god, who was standing on a dais a good distance from where Pepper was standing. He was in full Asgardian armor, minus the spear, with his chin held up at a haughty angle, looking every bit the god and prince he was.

"Shit," Tony muttered, wiping a hand over his face and hoping he was hallucinating. He prayed that Loki didn't end up killing more people.

Loki repeated himself, voice ringing loud and clear over the crowd, "What crimes are you accusing me of?"

For an agonizingly long moment, no one dared speak, and then everyone started to speak at once, voices shouting over one another, men and women gaining strength in the anger around them.

Loki barely so much as blinked. "Murder?" he said, arching an eyebrow. The crowd quieted again. "Destruction of property? Goodness." He chuckled softly. "I believe it was the earthquake that was to blame for that, yes?" He smiled that wide, tight smile that reminded Tony of a shark. "Who's to say I had anything to do with _that_?"

The crowd took up its outraged shouting again with renewed intensity.

"For all you know," Loki said, and again, the crowd quieted. "For all you know, I was trying to stop the earthquake. It is rare around here, yes, but not unheard of." He eyed the faces turned towards him silently, and the crowd waited.

In his living room, Tony waited, chewing on his thumb nail.

"Whatever you believe happened," Loki said, "you would have to prove it in a court of law, yes? That _is_ how your legal system works?"

Tony fidgeted, unsure if he should be impressed or concerned that Loki knew that.

"If you can find any such proof that a man like me created such a storm," Loki continued, "I would be more than happy to testify, as you say, citizen of your country or not. But then you'll have to sue Thor for all the damages caused by his thunderstorms, or _any_ thunderstorms, unless you can find a way to specify which were caused by him. And then you'd have to do the same with any and all weather patterns throughout the country, and really. Is it worth the headache?"

Loki's eyebrows rose in a question, in a challenge, but no one answered. "Is it?" he asked again. The silence was so complete Tony hardly dared to breathe.

And then Loki smiled, shook his head and vanished, and the reporters started hurling questions at Pepper again, who looked wide-eyed and flustered once the cameras panned back to her.

Tony was unsurprised when long fingers wrapped around the glass in his hand and took it from his grasp. Loki sat beside him, dressed now in jeans and a t-shirt (one of Tony's t-shirts) and looking for all the world like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. Tony eyed him for a long moment, watched as Loki downed his scotch, and he laughed softly, shaking his head.

"You would have made one hell of a lawyer," he said, and he thought that maybe there were worse things Loki could be other than the God of Mischief.

A slow smile crept over Loki's face. It fell again the next moment, and Loki turned to regard Tony, looking _through_ him in a way Tony (loved) hated. Loki's fingers traced the edges of the tumbler in his hand in a way that spoke of unease, and Loki looked down at the glass, at his hands, as he said, "I want you to know, Tony, that..." He paused to lick his lips. "That just because I don't _show_ something doesn't mean I don't feel it." He shifted in his seat, still not looking at him, and Tony knew that this admission was making him uncomfortable.

It took Tony a moment to understand what he was talking about. Then he remembered their earlier confrontation in the workshop. "You mean the whole..." he said, gesturing vaguely, "the guilt thing?"

Loki looked mildly offended at the word but nodded, glowering now. "I never enjoyed killing, you know," he murmured, gesturing with the glass. More comfortable now, Tony noted from that movement. He smiled softly and nodded in encouragement. "It's just..." Loki stared out at nothing and managed to look both ancient and lost. _Tired_, Tony realized. Only then did Loki raise his gaze to Tony again. Tony couldn't read all the emotions that passed over that expressive face, and it occurred to him that Loki blocked himself off, not because he felt nothing, but because he felt _more_ and more plainly. Because feeling that much _hurts_, and it's easier sometimes to shut your heart off altogether. Tony knew that better than anyone.

Loki smiled at him, a smile slow and bittersweet. "The way you look at me," he said softly, and something in his voice and in those words gave Tony pause. "It makes me wish I knew what you saw. Tony, I... I want to _try._" He paused, and Tony saw his adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "I want to try to be the person you seem to think I am."

Tony eyed him for a long moment, trying to understand. "What do you mean?" Tony asked in a voice equally soft.

Loki smiled crookedly and answered, "I mean no more..." He waved at the TV, which was showing scenes of the "earthquake" now. "No more _that_. I've always thought of myself as a monster and acted accordingly. You don't see me as a monster and – and I want to be worthy of that."

Tony sighed, knew that Loki was thinking of his Jotun heritage and of those godsdamned prophecies again. He wanted to find these "Norn" bitches and give them a piece of his mind. You make your own destiny, he'd always believed. This was America, after all.

And then it occurred to him what Loki was trying to say.

"You mean...?"

"Yes."

This was Loki giving in, Tony realized. Waving the white flag. Setting down the whole super-villain schtick.

He stared in amazement at the god and wondered: was this _really_ all Loki had needed, that a drunk with self-destructive tendencies could help him? He wondered how much Thor would hate himself if he knew.

He wondered if Fury had seen the changes in Loki and had agreed to forgive him because he had anticipated this moment.

Loki's eyes narrowed, and he held up a finger in warning as he said, "But I'm not joining the Avengers. I refuse."

Tony's smile widened and turned devilish. "That's what we all said, Loki."

Loki's eyes grew wide. "No," he insisted, jabbing his finger in Tony's face.

"Come over to the dark side, Loki," Tony said, dodging the finger and leaning in.

"No!" Loki repeated, scooting back along the couch.

Tony followed until he had Loki pinned and horizontal as he chanted, "One of us. One of us."

Loki smacked him lightly and pretended to struggle, all the while laughing and repeating, "No! I refuse!" Eventually he shut up Tony by pulling him down into a kiss.

* * *

><p>Clint walked in to find them making out on the couch, blinked, and walked right back out.<p> 


	15. Chapter 15

_A/N:_ Sorry for the late update! Life happened. :P

So. Just finished teaching a course on Norse Myth and loved it! I got some great feedback about my students talking about my class in other classes and at home, so I've already been asked back to teach it next year. CONVERTING FOLLOWERS AWWW YISSS.

And now, your feature presentation!

* * *

><p><strong>Just Fine<strong>

"Hey, Bruce."

Bruce smiled and nodded at Natasha as he passed her, answered with a soft-spoken, demure "good morning". He was looking worse for the wear, he knew, could see it reflected in her eyes, if only for a fraction of a second. It had been a tough year. The... _other guy_ had been coming out to play more, and he had tried to escape him all the way to the other side of the world (again).

But things had calmed - _he _had calmed - and now he thought he'd give the Avengers another go. It had been three months and five days since his last incident, he was proud to say, but that didn't keep the SHIELD operative who _escorted_ him from keeping a smile on her face and a hand on her holster.

Clint passed him in the hallway, munching on a bag of chips. "Hey, Bruce," he said with a crooked smile, and Bruce nodded and smiled in reply, said nothing about the politeness of speaking with one's mouth full.

Before stopping at his -_ old, abandoned, dusty_ - room, Bruce stopped by the workshop. He poked his head in but was too distracted by the amount of new equipment, gizmos, and gadgets for his eyes to land anywhere.

"Hey, Bruce," Tony called from the other side of the room, and Bruce swiveled to greet him, another polite smile on his face when -

"Yes, hello, Bruce."

Another face much, _much_ closer, with green eyes and a wicked, too-familiar grin.

* * *

><p>It had been sixteen minutes since his last incident, and Bruce still ran his hands through his soot-dusted hair and paced. His clothes were in tatters at his feet, but Natasha had wordlessly handed him a pair of pants, old and worn in the knees and crotch but still better quality than he was used to.<p>

Tony had told him not to touch anything, had smiled widely but brokenly as he stared out at "his babies" and tried to salvage what he could from the wreckage. Loki sat at Tony's desk, booted feet propped up next to the keyboard. He had the gall to look amused by the whole situation, unconcerned by the _mess_, but he schooled his face into something almost like guilt whenever Tony looked at him.

Bruce wasn't sure whether he wanted to help, to apologize, or to shout and rage about a certain _god_ of _mischief_ being here and-

Oh, wait. He'd already done that last part, hadn't he?

"A little help here would be nice," Tony groused at Loki as he fiddled with a broken table leg.

Loki's eyes were wide and innocent as he said, "But, Tony, darling, you said I was not to touch anything in here under _any_ circumstances."

Tony cursed and shoved aside some debris, looking close to tears. "Fine!" he snapped. "I take it back!"

Loki's smile was slow and devious and sent a shiver down Bruce's spine. The god leaned forward and swung his feet to the floor in one smooth motion. "Very well," he said, and then he closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and murmured soft nonsense under his breath. The furniture started to _shift_ and knit itself back together, and within minutes, the room was exactly as it had been before Bruce's _incident_.

Tony made a sound somewhere between a sigh and whimper, jumped to his feet and pulled Loki to him in a kiss.

Bruce had to take deep, calming breaths to _keep _from_ freaking out_.

"Okay," he growled, "_what_ the hell? _What_ the hell?"

"Easy, Bruce," Tony said, palms out in a placating gesture.

Bruce looked down at his hands to see them clenched and shaking. He closed his eyes, uncurled his fingers, and focused on his breathing: in, out. In, out. In, , out.

In, out.

In.

Out.

Bruce opened his eyes to see Loki wrap long, spidery arms around Tony's shoulders, and he closed his eyes to start the process over again.

"Guess you've missed a few things while you were gone," Tony said with a shaky laugh.

Bruce shook his head, pursed his lips and walked out the door before he ended up killing someone.

* * *

><p>"You get used to it."<p>

"Uh huh."

Steve and Bruce sat side by side on the roof, staring out at nothing, holding drinks that wouldn't get Steve drunk and that Bruce was too wary to drink. Mostly for the feel of the bottles in their hands, Steve had said. For nostalgia, for the _remembrance_ of something that used to be calming and so, by association, must be calming itself.

Instead, Bruce had to keep reminding himself not to drink from the bottle in his hand, or at least to only sip where Steve guzzled. He was beginning to understand what it was like to be a pregnant woman.

"It's weird at first."

"Uh huh."

More awkward silence, more staring into nothing, more pretending to drink booze that both of them wanted but couldn't really have.

Finally, Bruce shook himself, became more _aware_ of everything, of the condensation on the bottle in his hands, the wet label starting to peel under his nails, the warmth and solidity of Steve Rogers by his side, and the stir of a breeze that made an otherwise pleasant night just this side of uncomfortable.

Bruce shivered and hugged himself, pulled his legs up close to his body. Steve continued to stare, sip, and not notice anything around him.

"How long?" Bruce asked. Steve blinked as though just coming to and broke the pattern by looking at Bruce and then down at the bottle his hands were fiddling with.

"Almost a year," he answered with a small shake of his head. He hadn't expected that.

"And no incidents?" Bruce asked.

Steve chuffed. "I wouldn't say _no_ incidents," he replied. "A few. One or two big ones, but. They've mended it each time."

Bruce shook his head, wiped a hand down his face. "SHIELD's okay with it?"

"They're keeping an eye on things."

Bruce nodded, frowned. "And you?"

Steve shifted his weight, tensing just enough for Bruce to read his unease and uncertainty in his posture. "I think," he said, only to shake his head and trail off. "I don't know what to think."

Bruce nodded and went back to pretending to drink his beer.

* * *

><p>After dinner, Bruce liked to relax in front of the TV (a sinfully large contraption that hurt his eyes if he stared at it too long) and read the newspaper. He usually put on the news for background noise, though he changed the channel if he saw something that made him depressed or angry. He knew the world had problems and didn't need to be reminded.<p>

It was more the routine of it that he found soothing than anything else, the mindlessness, the _normality_. So when Bruce put up his feet and started to thumb through the paper, he was jolted out of his sense of ease when the channel changed to reruns of _Seinfeld._ The newspaper in hand rustled as he folded it down to peer over the top. On the other end of the couch sat Loki, looking eerily _normal_ in jeans and a t-shirt, bare feet propped up on the coffee table and remote in hand. He turned to meet Bruce's stare with an innocent smile.

Bruce cleared his throat and shifted awkwardly, pausing to _breathe_ to keep the Other Guy from making an appearance.

"Um," he said softly, "if you don't mind, Loki, I sort of have this routine -"

"Well, this is _my_ routine," Loki replied with a _friendly_ smile.

"Your...?" Bruce furrowed his brow. He pursed his lips, closed his eyes to take a deep breath. "No, it isn't! I've been here at this time every day for a week and haven't seen you here once!"

"Well, maybe I'm just starting a routine."

"Oh dear Lord." Bruce wiped a hand over his face and prayed for patience.

"But you misunderstand," Loki said oh-so-sweetly. "My routine is to _not_ have a routine. Though I do enjoy this mortal Seinfeld here. He is rather amusing, if self-obsessed."

Bruce remembered when he used to watch Seinfeld religiously, back when it was still fresh. It occurred to him that these episodes would be new to Loki.

"Fine," he sighed. "I suppose there are worse things you could do."

"Careful," Loki murmured, though his eyes remained on the screen, "I might see that as a challenge." His lips quirked up in a smirk.

Bruce shook his head and set down the paper, sat back to enjoy the reruns. He watched and chuckled at the familiar lines, found it had been long enough since he'd last seen this particular episode for him to still enjoy it.

"Is it customary," Loki asked at one point, "to deny people soup in such a fashion?"

"_No_," Bruce laughed. "No, that's... that's the joke, see." Loki nodded but still looked deep in throught.

During a commercial break, Bruce glanced at Loki in his non-threatening t-shirt and bare feet and asked, "Is this your way of trying to win me over?"

"Please," Loki scoffed. "Like I care what you think of me. If I were 'trying', you'd already be my lap dog. Besides, you're far more entertaining when you're green and angry and smashing things."

"Things like your face," Bruce said without thinking. Eyes wide and smile almost guilty, he said, "Sorry."

Loki, on the other hand, merely laughed. "No, no," he said. "You went up in my estimation for that. Cheeky."

That struck Bruce as the sort of thing Tony would say, and he stared at Loki for a long moment, wondering.

He heard footsteps approaching from the kitchen, and then-

"Hey, guys," Tony called as he walked through the door. And then Bruce saw it, though just barely since it was there and gone in a flash: Loki's eyes lit up when he saw Tony. That smile was gone quicker than Bruce could blink, but it was there, the type of micro-expression, of reflex, that he doubted even Loki could fake.

Tony plopped down onto the couch in between them, pressed up against Loki who now looked indifferent, staring at the television screen.

"Everything alright?" Tony asked Bruce. Bruce realized that he had been staring at them, blinked and smiled in apology.

"Just fine," he answered with a private smile as he turned back to his paper. "Everything's just fine."


	16. Chapter 16

_A/N_: Hey there, kiddies! Sorry for the delay. My writing muse has been playing dead for a while. Anyways, only one or two more chapters of _DYK_ and then on to _Mortality_. IT'S VERY EXCITING. YISSS.

Also, I'm totally making up the shit about Asgard in this. I have this whooooole head canon about the world of Asgard that I'll be getting into more in _Mortality_. *whistles innocently*

* * *

><p><strong>Reminders<strong>

It was Pepper who reminded him. _Thank God for Pepper_ was a phrase Tony had uttered more than once, and because of such situations.

"Your anniversary is in a week, you know."

Tony shut off the torch and pulled up his face plate to look at her, dark eyes round like the proverbial deer-in-the-headlights.

"About that," he said, holding up one gloved, soot-covered finger. "...what?"

Pepper sighed and ducked her head to hide her smile. "Your anniversary," she said. "Same night as the museum benefit, right?"

Tony ducked his head and cleared his throat. "Well," he said, fidgeting awkwardly with the torch in his hand, "we didn't exactly start _dating_ that night, but - okay, okay, yeah." He cut himself off at the nauseated look starting to cross Pepper's face. "Guess that... that's as good a day as any."

He nodded and squinted at his work again, a hand on the face plate and ready to pull it back over his face.

Pepper stood, tablet folded under her palms, and watched Tony expectantly.

"Anything else?" he asked, raised hand still in limbo.

Pepper smiled indulgently. "Would you like me to make plans...?" she asked, gesturing meaningfully as she trailed off.

"Oh," Tony said, and there was that deer-in-the-headlights look again. "Right, uh." He chewed his bottom lip and looked around the room as though his disaster area of a workshop could give him answers. "How do I even do this?" he asked, shrugging. "I'm not exactly an expert on long-term relationships, and - hell, it's not like I can get the guy flowers or something, right?" He crinkled his nose. "Isn't that kind of girly? Oh God, I hope he doesn't get _me_ flowers!" He'd never be able to live that down.

Pepper sighed and looked dangerously close to rolling her eyes. "Take him out to dinner or something," she said. "A romantic touch wouldn't be a bad thing, but neither of you strike me as the overly sentimental type."

"'A romantic touch'," Tony echoed, batting his eyelashes mockingly. "Like what? Write him a poem or something?"

Pepper's brow crinkled in either concern, amusement, or both. "The thought of you writing poetry is frightening," she said.

Tony cleared his throat theatrically and said, "Roses are red, violets are blue, I like sex, and so do you!"

Pepper shut her eyes and rubbed at the bridge of her nose, though Tony swore he saw a hint of a smile there.

* * *

><p>"It's our anniversary on Thursday," Tony said.<p>

He expected a little more of a reaction from Loki than the vaguely distracted, "Huh."

Loki was sitting at Tony's desk, a desk that the god had requisitioned as his own since he had started living in the Tower (wait, when had that happened, anyway?), and he was absorbed in the computer in front of him, long fingers pecking at keys now and then. Usually Loki was more absorbed in the bookshelf behind the desk than in the computer, and Tony was afraid to walk around to the other side of the desk and see what, exactly, Loki was doing on that thing.

Last time he'd seen Loki at this particular computer, New York had ended up with a herd of alpacas ravaging Central Park. Loki insisted he was not involved, but _come on_.

But anyway.

Tony folded his arms and arched an eyebrow at the god - a look he'd borrowed from Loki's arsenal of looks-that-could-kill - eyebrow arching slowly higher, higher, until Loki finally caught the hint and glanced up at him over the top of his (Tony's, really) laptop. He blinked at Tony's unimpressed stare and countered it with his own doe-eyed look (the bastard). "Our anniversary," he echoed. "Anniversary of what, exactly?"

This time Tony was the one blinking in confusion. _Well done, Tony. You've somehow ended up with the one person more clueless when it comes to relationships than you_.

"Anniversary of when we started dating." Still felt weird to say 'dating' in conjunction with him _or_ Loki, let alone together.

Loki tilted his head. "Do you celebrate that on Midgard now?" he asked. "It's hard to keep track of your changing traditions." He waved his hand in a gesture that was flippant and vaguely dismissive (and vaguely _insulting_, really).

Tony wondered if he would have been better off never telling Loki about this. Too late now.

"Well, just keep your expectations that low, and we'll be alright."

Loki chuffed and smirked at Tony, leaning back in the ergonomic desk chair he'd also 'borrowed' from Tony. "I suppose it makes more sense than celebrating one's expulsion from his mother's birth canal every year."

Tony shook his head. He had to remind himself that Thor and Loki hadn't been on earth for this long since the Middle Ages. And _wow_ was that a weird thought. "Still can't believe you don't celebrate birthdays on Asgard," he said. He'd found that out on _his_ birthday, when Loki had hidden his embarrassment at not knowing about the 'gift-giving ritual', as he put it, by giving him something that would likely earn Tony another punch from Thor if he knew. Tony rather hoped Loki 'forgot' to get him a present next year too.

"Why bother?" Loki asked. "You'd lose track after a few centuries."

"Yes, but think of all the presents!" Tony replied, gesturing broadly. For some reason, he found himself envisioning mountains and mountains of horned helmets.

Loki shook his head. "Years pass differently on Asgard. Our sun is larger but we are farther from it, and it takes almost five of your years for one revolution." As he spoke, he spun his pointer finger in the air to illustrate.

Tony perked up at the mention of something science-related, even if it was astronomy. He was fascinated by the very idea of Asgard, of another planet with life, with humanoid creatures, even. "So... a four-year-old on your world would be twenty on ours."

"Very good," Loki replied wryly. "Shall I have JARVIS check your math?"

"Oh, shut up." He grinned as he regarded Loki for a long moment. "You know what, we're gonna give you and Thor birthdays." He wondered how unamused Loki would be if he got him a horse for his 'present'.

"Why?" Loki asked dryly. "Thor already has a day once a week here."

"Oh yeah." Tony moved to perch on the edge of the desk, started to swing one leg so that it 'accidentally' tapped Loki's thigh every once in a while. "We should rename Saturday 'Lokiday', since it's already the most awesome day of the week. And celebrate with massive orgies." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "_Every _week."

"I think we're getting off topic," Loki replied. He caught Tony's swinging foot and shoved it away from him, though he met Tony's smirk with his own.

"Right!" Tony all but chirped, remembering why he had come in here in the first place. "Anniversary. Thursday."

"Yes, I gathered," Loki replied patiently, if wearily. "But how does one celebrate an anniversary?"

_Good question_, Tony thought. "Uh," he began, eloquently, "as far as I know, mostly food and sex. At different times, generally, but hey."

"And how is this different than any other Thursday?"

Loki had a point. "Well, this time I'll try to make it special. Treat you like the princess you are."

"For the last time, Tony," Loki sighed, "stop comparing me to a Disney princess."

"Oh, come on, Snow White."

Loki grimaced. "Please, no," he said. "The whole seven dwarves thing just reminds me of Freya and of certain images I wish I could erase from my mind."

"Fine, then let down your hair, Rapunzel."

"Fuck you."

Tony laughed and bent to kiss Loki because he _had_ to. Loki made a face but didn't move away.

"And here I was hoping you'd make the night special and put on that sea-shell bra."

Loki shoved Tony off the desk.

* * *

><p>"So do you feel like a princess, yet?"<p>

"By Urd, Stark, I swear I will kill you in your sleep."

Tony chuckled, and he knew he had to be the only human on this planet who could laugh at a threat like that from a god and one-time super-villain. Moreover, he had to be the only one who could coax a smirk and an exasperated sigh from that god the next second.

Then again, he was probably the only human screwing said god (he hoped, anyway), so maybe he had an unfair advantage.

"Now, Loki," Tony mock scolded, making a stern face at Loki over his plate. "If you did that, then who would take care of your _needs_?"

"Please," Loki scoffed, cutting into his steak in a way Tony would describe as prissy (in his head, anyway; he didn't have a death-wish), his long fingers manipulating the knife and fork with a distractingly fluid ease. "I could just as easily attend to my 'needs' with a conveniently shaped bit of produce."

Tony didn't choke on his wine, but it was a near thing. He covered up his snort of laughter with an unconvincing cough, throwing a sheepish grin at the turned-heads he'd earned form the table next to them. "Remind me to put bananas on the shopping list," he said, and Loki smirked. Tony tried not to think too hard on that mental image.

He'd _wanted_ to take Loki to that museum from a year ago, as a joke, but security had been less than impressed by that idea. Apparently holding hostages and carrying around a (fake) gun was frowned upon in certain circles.

So they'd gone down the street to this restaurant instead. It had a French name, _La Fromage_ or something. Tony didn't remember and didn't care. It was a nice restaurant, upscale enough to keep the prices off the menu, where everyone wore suits and ties and didn't talk with their mouth full. Boring, in other words, but Loki had a way of keeping things interesting.

And "interesting" was exactly what Tony would call the toes of one foot pressing into his thigh under the table.

Tony cleared his throat and fought the urge to squirm. Loki was the picture of innocence across the table, brows raised in a question even as his toes started to knead. "Something the matter, dearest?" he blithely asked. There was a hint of a smirk in that oh-so-polite smile.

"Loki," Tony all but growled. The foot trailed higher, and Tony jumped, cursing, making the silverware rattle against the table. More questioning stares from other tables, this time less impressed, and Loki's expression turned politely puzzled. The bastard. "I can't take you anywhere," Tony said in mock exasperation, one hand snaking under the table cloth to squeeze Loki's socked foot.

"On the contrary," Loki replied. "You can _take_ me anywhere you like." His grin turned wicked as he took another bite of steak, pulling the morsel off the fork with his teeth and tongue.

Tony cursed softly and sipped at his wine, mouth suddenly dry.

"Loki," Tony said in a soft growl, licking his lips and tasting more wine, "I'm trying to be romantic, you know. Let's at least try to make it through dessert, for once."

Loki arched an eyebrow, looking amused in that condescending way of his, as though Tony were a child proud of himself for peeing in the proper place for the first time. "Whyever would you do that?" he asked, his smile all crooked lips and gleaming teeth. "My way's more fun."

The heel of Loki's foot pressed down into Tony's thigh, and Tony cursed – again – and tightened his grip on the be-socked toes attached to it.

"Hey, if you want bathroom sex that badly," Tony mumbled, narrowing his eyes at his "date" as he trailed off meaningfully.

"Please," Loki scoffed. "Not bathroom sex. Flying sex."

Tony blinked. "What."

"You know," Loki blithely replied, gesturing with his wine glass, "flying sex. Your suit, my magic?" The smile Loki gave him over the rim of his glass was positively sinful.

Tony wasn't sure they were going to make it through dinner, never mind dessert. He cleared his throat and tried to push Loki's foot away again. "Romance," he reminded Loki, "_then _the sex. Also, I'm not sure we should be saying sex so much in this kind of restaurant."

Loki rolled his eyes and retracted the offending foot, eyeing Tony with a long-suffering look. "Romance," he echoed dryly as he picked up his fork again. "You wouldn't know what to do with romance if it bit you in the arse."

"There's only one thing I know to do to things that bite me in the ass," Tony added with a wink. Loki shot him an unimpressed look across the table.

"Evidence says to the contrary," Loki sniped, and as Tony was about to reply, he added exasperatedly, "But yes, yes, get on with the _romance_ then. Though it's a bit late to be 'wooing' me."

"Woo yourself, you ass," Tony replied. More dirty looks from the lady to the left. He was lubricated enough to give her one right back. "Pepper said I should be a gentleman for once, since it's our anniversary."

"Did she," Loki said, again with that condescendingly amused smile. "What else did she say you should do, hmm?"

"She said I should write you a poem."

That irritating smile shifted into something a little more worried. "Oh dear Odin."

"Well," Tony said, scratching his head, "not sure if she told me to in so many words, but. I did, so." He cleared his throat theatrically and reached into his breast pocket.

Loki rubbed at his forehead. "Oh, this can't possibly end well," he muttered.

Tony smirked at the hint of embarrassment in Loki's expression, and, unfolding the bit of notebook paper he'd drawn out, he rose to his feet. Loki furrowed his brow and eyed Tony warily.

"What are you doing?" the god asked flatly. "_Do_ sit down."

"Not until I have formally professed _my love to you_," Tony answered, raising his voice to carry through the restaurant at this last phrase, "_through poetry_!" He smiled at the sea of confused stares around them and bowed theatrically for his "audience". He cleared his throat dramatically and read:

"There once was a miniature Jotun

Whose ass was really quite smokin'.

To them he was small,

But to me he's quite tall,

And his is the fine ass that I'm pokin'."

Tony bowed again and sat back down to a chorus of gossipy mutterings and scattered, confused clapping. Loki wiped a hand over his face and watched Tony through the fingers of one hand, biting his lip to keep either from cursing or from laughing.

"Happy Anniversary, toots," Tony said around a mouthful of steak.

They still didn't make it to dessert.


	17. Chapter 17

_A/N:_ Had to pull myself away from this chapter. My OCD has been flaring up lately; still not happy with it, but you guys have waited long enough.

Anyways. This is the **final chapter** of _The Devil You Know_, which will be continued in the upcoming story _Mortality_ (also the name of the series as a whole). You guys have been beyond amazing, and I wanted to thank you again for every page view, review, follow, fave, recommendation, and every other flavor of support any of you have given me. The fact that you're still here speaks volumes. You guys are the reason I write, and I LOVE YOU ALL. HUGS ALL AROUND.

So this one-shot turned out kinda angsty. And long. Long and angsty. Like Loki's life. I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not.

* * *

><p><strong>Priorities<strong>

_The ceiling was hardly exciting even in daylight, but Loki stared up at it now, as he did many nights, watching as the glow of the city cast hard-edged shadows across its surface. The shadows moved from one corner of the ceiling to the other as Loki thought about bleak things like the future. _

_He rolled onto his side to stare at different shadows._

_Tony was dead weight next to him, half his face pressed against his pillow, limbs akimbo and claiming most of the bed. He was sleeping soundly for once, brow uncreased with the stress of nightmares, and though his breath smelled sour, it was from sleep rather than alcohol._

_Loki should leave him be, should be grateful that Tony was getting a healthy amount of sleep for once, but he was tired and bored. He shifted so that he 'accidentally' prodded Tony's ribs with his knee, prodded again harder when Tony merely snuffled in his sleep._

_The brown eye not pressed into the pillow slit open and blinked blearily at Loki. Loki smiled back softly, apologetically, as though he hadn't just kneed Tony in the ribs._

_Tony slurred out something that might have been, "Why are you awake?"_

_Loki shrugged and murmured, "Can't shut my brain off."_

_Tony "Mmm'd" and rolled to face Loki fully, one arm snaking about Loki's waist to pull him close and to hold him like a teddy bear._

_"Your breath smells," Loki groused, and Tony chuckled and kissed Loki in reply (or retaliation), making the god screw up his face._

_"And you take up half the bed."_

_Tony smiled indulgently. "Mhmm."_

_"And you drool in your sleep."_

_Tony arched an eyebrow at Loki, still smiling. And then Loki's hand was on Tony's cheek, soft palm to harsh stubble, and Loki was thinking about how little that actually mattered because one day that side of the bed would be empty and he would miss all the stupid little things that drove him crazy tonight._

_"Stop thinking," Tony said, pulling Loki closer to him. And as Loki found himself surrounded by Tony's scent and warmth, he decided that this was the best advice he'd gotten in a while. He closed his eyes._

* * *

><p>Loki thought of that night as he stared at the wall, white and stark and no more exciting than the ceiling cut with shadows like the facets of a diamond. He wished he could remember what Tony had smelled like, but the sharp, sterile smell of the hospital was all he could focus on.<p>

'One day' had come sooner than even a god could predict, and Loki felt the faintest tremor in his fingers as they tapped out a rhythm against his thigh.

"I hate you," Loki said to the one other person in the room. The words were thick, spit out like venom.

Thor stopped his pacing, eyes wide and wild like a caged lion's. Loki looked at him with ice in his eyes, swallowing what felt like shards of glass.

"_How could you let this happen_?" Loki shrieked, and then he was striking Thor - knuckles to jaw, bone to bone - through the sting of tears. Then his arms were pinned to his chest and sides, and the blur of muscle in front of him smelled like sweat and leather and _Thor_, smelled like home and family. Loki struggled weakly and cursed as tears curved down his cheeks, but Thor held him tightly, mercilessly, and hushed him, susurrating in Asgardian.

"He's still alive," Thor reminded him, one broad hand now cupping the back of Loki's head, the other rubbing circles along his back, and Loki pounded his fist against Thor's chest once more out of spite. Thor gripped him tighter.

* * *

><p>The last time Tony had found himself in a hospital bed with a breathing tube shoved up his nose, Pepper had been sitting beside him, face pale and mascara clumped and running from crying. She'd all but squeezed the life out of him when he'd awakened, greeting him with oaths and hiccupping sobs.<p>

Loki sat beside him this time, and though his face was equally pale, his eyes equally shadowed, he was not weeping or flinging himself into Tony's arms (Tony tried hard to banish the thought of Loki with running mascara). He glared instead, expression tight, with his arms folded across his chest.

He looked pissed.

"'Morning, sunshine," Tony said, summoning up his most disarming smile. Something uncertain flickered through Loki's eyes, but he was still most certainly _glaring_.

"I would slap you if you didn't look so pathetic," Loki replied, his voice matter-of-fact. Tony tried his best to look sheepish. He knew not to take it personally, since he knew Loki must have been sitting by his bedside through the night.

The beat of the heart monitor was slow, mechanical and harsh. The sheets were stiff and scratchy under his hands, stark creases dividing the white fabric into rectangular sections. He tried to smooth them out with his hand, only to stare and blink at the creases in his _skin_, which was spotted and – and _wrinkly_.

Tony blinked and swallowed, but Loki distracted him by saying, "I suppose I should ask you how you're feeling."

"I suppose so," Tony said with humor he wasn't feeling. His mind reeled as he stared at his hand, trying to remember if any _House_ episodes had dealt with weird cases like this (that was the extent of his medical knowledge). The rate of the heart monitor picked up minutely. "What happened?" he asked, pulling his gaze away.

Loki was watching him in a way that made Tony feel naked and not in the fun way. The glare was replaced by something more searching, almost _concerned_. "What do you remember?" Loki asked softly.

"The tomb," Tony answered, brow furrowing. "Lots of old stuff, a few traps. Very Indiana Jones, by the way."

Loki did not smile, and Tony's forced grin slid. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"I accidentally set off a trap." He shrugged.

Loki's lips thinned. "The trap was cursed," he said quietly.

Tony shrugged again, the gesture more exaggerated. "Yeah, well, I'm okay, right? No harm done?" He determinedly kept his stare on Loki to keep from staring at his hand again.

Tony knew that had been too much to hope for, and his heart sank at the grimace Loki's face twisted into. Tony could see him swallow and knew he wasn't going to like this.

"Tony," Loki said, leaning forward and over the bed. The chair creaked as he shifted. "The curse aged you 50 years."

* * *

><p>Steve approached hesitantly, hands in his pockets, as Loki walked back out into the hallway, the door clicking softly shut behind him. Loki's cheekbones stood out harshly against the hollowness of his cheeks, of his eyes.<p>

"How is he?" Steve asked, voice and eyes soft with sympathy. It was all a weird sort of irony, really – here was Steve, young and vital when he should be ancient or dead, and there was Tony, who should be young and spry but – _well_.

Loki's answering glare hardly came as a surprise. "How do you _think_ he is?" the god snapped, stalking past him.

"Hey, I'm just trying to help!" Steve answered, turning to glare at Loki's retreating back.

Loki wheeled about and marched back up and into his face. "Help?" he growled, teeth grit and eyes so very green this close. Steve took a wary step back, and Loki followed. "Help would have been _wonderful_ while you Neanderthals were off in that tomb. Help would have been _spectacular_ when you or Thor could have taken the lead instead of the one _mortal_ in your little trio. But it's a bit late now, so you can take your '_help'_ and shove it up your virgin arse!"

Loki turned and stalked back down the hallway, almost visibly fuming, and Steve stared after him, too startled to register anger or humiliation at the god's words.

* * *

><p>It turned out that growing old was terrifying. Doubly so when it happened overnight.<p>

Tony wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when he'd first caught sight of his reflection (correction: when he'd first caught sight of his reflection and realized that it was, in fact, _his_ reflection). Since he wasn't alone, he went with a joking, "Check out that handsome devil."

Steve had sighed but not scolded him. Would wonders never cease.

Pepper – dear, sweet, saintly Pepper – had gotten him set up at home, had fluffed his pillows and brought him food like a good little nurse. But her eyes were always tight, hollow, and too, too soulful when she looked at him, like he was a dog she loved but knew she was going to have to put down soon.

Or a cat, he supposed.

He'd turned to Loki at that thought. The god never seemed to go very far these days. "I miss having a cat to yell at me in the morning, you know," he'd said, lips quirked in a nostalgic smile.

"I'm sorry," Loki had answered, "do I not yell at you enough? I shall strive to do better."

From the weary quality of the words, Tony suspected they may have had this conversation already. He couldn't remember it.

Loki said something else, but Tony couldn't make it out.

Tony could tell that Loki was getting more and more frustrated (they both were) each time he turned his ear towards the god and said, "Eh?" There were times when he just nodded and pretended like he had heard what Loki (or Steve or Pepper or Bruce or Rhodey) had said.

At least Thor's words were always easy to hear.

* * *

><p>Tony's eyes followed Loki around the room, settling only when Loki settled, the god sitting at Tony's bedside with yet another heavy book on his knee.<p>

"Loki," he said. He still hated how croaky his voice sounded, how out of breath _talking_ made him.

Loki barely glanced at him before turning back to his book, brow creased in concentration, lines etched deeper and deeper each day. If he didn't know better, Tony would think that he'd been hit with an aging curse as well. "Eat your pudding before I do," Loki said evenly, with a hint of a smile.

Tony's lips pulled up at one corner automatically, but he kept his eyes on Loki. "Loki," he said again. "You know this might be permanent."

Loki's jaw muscles fluttered under the skin, and Loki blinked but did not look at Tony. "The spell will work," Loki said, and Tony could tell that it took effort for him to keep his voice even. Green eyes glared at the book as though hoping to burn a hole through it.

"You said that about the last spell."

Tony swallowed past the tightness in his throat and looked away before the burning in his eyes turned into tears. He didn't want to die just yet and – worse still – he didn't want to live another ten or twenty years like this, shriveled and weak – _useless_ – and the thought of this being his fate eventually, one way or another, made him want to jump off a building sans suit. Tony Stark was a man defined by his youth, doubly so thanks to his eternally-young maybe-boyfriend-lover-thing.

Loki slammed the book shut like a petulant child and turned to stare out the window. In the morning light, Tony could see the faint glimmer of gathering tears in Loki's eyes, could see the tightness of his jaw.

"It _will_ work," Loki grated out through his teeth, throwing a glare over his shoulder. The words _it has to_ were left unsaid, but Tony heard them well enough.

"Loki," Tony said again, and Loki shut his eyes as though pained. "I know you're thinking it. One way or another, today or thirty years from now, this is going to be us. Look at me, please." His voice was gentle, but there was steel in this command. Loki turned back, his green eyes hard, walled off. Tony looked back and smiled softly, sadly. "We were never made to last, and you know that."

Thirty years was nothing to Loki. The fact that Loki was trying so hard to keep him young told Tony clearly how little Loki wanted _this, _and he didn't blame him, not really.

Loki's stare bored into Tony's, green eyes bright and shrewd and telling him absolutely nothing. "So that's it, is it?" the god said softly, and with his newly terrible hearing, Tony had to lean towards him to make out the words. "Things start to get a little messy, so you want to throw it away?"

Tony's brow furrowed. "What?"

Loki leaned towards him, eyes narrowed threateningly. "I'm not done with you, Tony Stark," he all but growled, "so you can swallow whatever else you were going to say. I'm going to find a way to fix this. Your life is pathetically short enough, and thirty years more is better than nothing until I can –" Loki cut off what he was about to say and licked his lips, turning away.

"I don't want you tied to this," Tony said softly, gazing sadly over his bed-ridden body.

"I already am," Loki snapped, throwing the book to the pile on the floor.

Tony watched him in silence for a long, long moment. Eventually he broke the stillness with a weighted question. "Let's say it is temporary," he said, "or that we fix it, and I age naturally again… what would you do when I got to this point _then_?"

Loki closed his eyes, wiped a hand over his face. He said nothing.

"I would expect you to leave, you know," Tony said when the silence went on too long. "Or at least want to. I get it. I mean, you're a god, and I'm just –"

"Oh, shut up, you imbecile."

Tony blinked at Loki, who stared down now at his folded hands, eyes open but unseeing.

Slowly, Tony said, "I will if you answer the question."

Loki grimaced, but replied, "Your years are more precious than mine. I'm not about to waste a single one."

Tony sieved through this, more slowly than usual, and in the end he shook his head, uncomprehending. "What are you saying?" he asked.

"I'm saying I'm not leaving you, you bloody fool." Loki shot him another glare, though there was no heart in it. He leaned over Tony and traced a hand down his face as he said, "I don't care if you are old and shriveled or can't even remember how to tie your shoes. So long as even a sliver of you remains, it is _mine_, do you understand?" There was something dark in Loki's eyes, something unbalanced that made Tony catch his breath, but in the same moment, he understood: there was a threat in there, but above and beyond that, there was a promise.

"Of course," Tony answered, if a bit breathlessly.

Loki nodded, evidently mollified, and sat back.

* * *

><p>During the first counter-curse Loki had tried, Tony had watched him with rheumy eyes, holding his wheezy breath, and hoped. It hadn't worked, and Tony had sunk back against the pillows and tried not to look as crushed as he felt. Loki had cursed but assured him there were other spells he could try.<p>

During the second counter-curse, Tony was hopeful, yes, but wary. He was disappointed but unsurprised when it didn't work. Loki had been calm, too calm, with his jaw clenching in a way that Tony knew meant danger. Loki had politely excused himself, and Tony later found out that he'd leveled a copse of trees in Central Park to let off some steam.

During the third counter-curse, Tony sat by politely, waiting for it to fail.

Naturally, that was the spell that took.

Tony hadn't been expecting it, the warmth that flooded his limbs, that shivered down his back and tingled along his skin and settled in the tips of his fingers. He held up his hand, watched the golden glow of healing magic make his skeleton visible through his skin. His bones, muscle, and skin seemed to stretch and pop, and Tony grunted in not-quite-pain as the healing glow pulsed, then ebbed and faded into nothing. Tony's hand, his body, was _his_ again.

Tony let out a shuddering breath, only then aware of the tears gathering in his eyes. He blinked them back and looked up at Loki, who watched him with bright, attentive eyes, the ancient tome of a spellbook still cradled in his spidery fingers.

"Thank you," Tony breathed, half to Loki, half as a prayer to a God he wasn't sure he believed in.

Loki's lips twitched in what could have been the beginnings of a smile, and then he was all business once again, snapping shut the book with a heavy _thump _and setting it down at the foot of Tony's bed before approaching Tony and examining his hands, his face, tilting his chin every which way and looking into dark eyes.

"How do you feel?" Loki asked, long fingers pausing in their examination of Tony's throat.

"Good as new," Tony answered with a crooked smile.

Then he snared his fingers in long, black hair and pulled the god to him in a victory kiss. Loki made a small noise in protest but allowed himself to be pulled forward, and he kissed back. Those long fingers slid up to cradle the back of Tony's head.

"Now," Tony murmured against Loki's lips, "I _really_ need to stretch my legs."

He winked at Loki before slithering under and by him off the bed, skipping and jumping his way to the door. He shot a goofy smile back at Loki before he rounded the corner and out of sight.

Loki shook his head, smiling softly, exhausted with the weight of his relief.

* * *

><p>Apparently, Tony decided that the best way to celebrate his newfound youth was with strangers, loud music, and copious amounts of alcohol. Loki had little use for any of these, though Pepper had handed him a brightly colored drink that she "thought he might like", and he was grateful, if only because it gave his hands something to do.<p>

Loki watched Tony with ancient eyes, watched him laugh and drink and smile, and thought about what was and, worse, what almost had been.

The despair he'd felt had been like falling from the Bifrost all over again.

Loki watched Tony and thought about Idun and her golden apples of eternal youth. He thought that, maybe, the time for wariness and waiting was over.

Tony looked up as Loki took a cautious sip of his mystery drink, and their eyes caught over the sea of faces. Tony's smile turned soft, and Loki echoed it, a thousand thoughts communicated through that one look.

Tony glanced to the side meaningfully, and Loki followed his stare to the empty balcony, cut off from the room's chaos. Tony looked back at Loki, who nodded, and then they both made for the door to the balcony, finally converging in the open air. With the door shut behind them, they were in another world, the sounds of music and voices muffled by the wall even as the bass beat continued to thud in their chests. In the night, the golden glow of the city windows were fallen stars, and Loki searched for shapes among their constellations.

Loki was pulled from his thoughts when his drink was pulled from his hand, and he turned to see Tony sipping at the pale green liquid before making a face and handing the glass back. "Ugh," Tony grunted, still grimacing, "what _is_ that?"

"No idea," Loki answered truthfully, eyes smiling as he took a sip of his own. "But I rather like it."

"Pepper?" Tony asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Pepper," Loki agreed.

Tony sidled up to Loki, cocked his hip against the wall and stared out at the city.

Loki let him have his silence for a long moment before he sighed and asked, "Did you want me out here just so you could taste-test my drink?"

Tony laughed self-deprecatingly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, I have plenty of reasons to want to get you alone," he said with a suggestive eyebrow waggle, "but… well. When you're dying or think you might be dying, it kind of puts things in perspective, you know?"

"I suppose so, yes," Loki replied neutrally. He watched Tony closely, watched him fidget and gesture expansively the way he did when he was uncomfortable. Nothing made Tony more uncomfortable than talking about _feelings_, so Loki bit back a smile and waited for him to continue.

"What you said," Tony continued, "about staying with me, did you… did you _mean_ that?" His darting gaze finally landed on Loki and stayed there, eyes dark and intense, demanding truth.

Now Loki was the one shifting uncomfortably. "Of course," he answered. His fingers tapped out a rhythm against his glass, and he felt Tony's eyes on him still. He turned to see Tony smiling at him, looking just this side of smug. "It's not polite to stare, you know," Loki groused.

Tony continued to smile and stare, probably well aware that he was making Loki uneasy. "So," he said.

"So…?" Loki prompted into the heavy silence.

"So you plan on staying with me until I die," he said. "Even when I'm old and wrinkly?"

"Especially when you're old and wrinkly," Loki replied with a forced smile. "You'll be too senile to remember all the naughty things I'll do to you."

Tony chuckled softly, gaze finally sliding down. Loki followed the look to see Tony's hand reaching for and then engulfing his own, dark and callused against Loki's long fingers.

"'Til death do us part' and all that, huh?" Tony said, still watching the way their fingers interlaced. Loki looked up, gaze tracing the half-moon curve of Tony's downturned eyelids. "Might as well make it official, don't you think?" Tony's eyes met his again, brightened by a smile but guarded, hopeful, uncertain.

Loki blinked, sieving through these half-insinuations. "Tony Stark," he said at length, eyes narrowing, "are you _proposing_?"

Tony shrugged, and there was more uncertainty than hope in his eyes now, though the smile was still there, Tony's invisible armor. "Just thought you might make a good trophy wife, you know," he said. "As long as you keep up your figure, anyway."

Loki chuffed and rolled his eyes. "Except I wouldn't be the wife."

"Oh, come on. I'm willing to admit that you would look better in a dress."

"You _would_ look frightful in a dress," Loki agreed, "but that just makes you an ugly wife."

"Ouch. Words can hurt, you know."

Loki shut them both up with a kiss. Maybe even a little tongue. He threw the drink aside, uncaring as glass shattered against cement, and the hand not laced with Tony's laced through Tony's hair instead.

"Alright," Loki answered, "but I'm not wearing the dress."

* * *

><p>Tony insisted on telling everyone right then and there. Loki insisted Tony wait until he was sober.<p>

"Then we'll be waiting forever," Tony replied, grip still tight about Loki's hand, tighter still as he used that point of contact to tug Loki along behind him, back through the door into the noise and the party and the press of bodies.

"Engaged" was the word Tony used. It felt odd on Loki's lips as he mouthed it to himself, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was Tony at his side and how Loki planned to keep him there. What mattered was the great smile on Tony's face and the way it would stretch wider and brighter each time it turned to Loki.

_Ridiculous_, Loki thought but with affection.

At Tony's news, the mass of inebriated strangers gave a celebratory "whoop!", and the Avengers present gaped at the pair in what could have been surprise or horror. Tony beamed drunkenly at the gathered crowd and said, "_Now_ you can start the party!"

* * *

><p>As the music boomed back to life, Steve, Natasha, and Clint converged in an isolated corner, hands and arms spread in a universal "wtf?" gesture.<p>

"Am I crazy or will this make Loki heir to everything Tony owns when he dies?" Clint asked, eyes still round. "God, right? He'll outlive Tony and take over everything! We're screwed!"

"This is just drunk-Tony talking, right?" Steve asked. "He'll wake up tomorrow and say he was kidding, right?"

"Should we tell Fury?" Natasha asked.

"_I'm_ not telling Fury," Clint groused.

The trio fell silent when Loki approached them, carrying a tray with glasses of champagne. He handed off the glasses, and the Avengers took the drinks automatically, numbly. "Drink up," he said with a sickly sweet smile. "I suspect you'll need it." He flashed them one more grin, one that said he knew something they didn't, and then vanished into the crowd.

The three watched him for a long moment. Natasha eyed her drink distrustfully, Clint downed his in one gulp, and Steve didn't even bother.

"At least Bruce isn't here to hulk out," Clint pointed out with a shrug. Natasha shook her head and downed her drink too.

But then Steve caught sight of Loki again beyond the press of the crowd. The god stood next to Tony, his back to all the noise and commotion, his eyes and smile soft in a way Steve hadn't seen before.

Steve still hated and distrusted Loki's guts, sure, but that _look_…

Maybe Thor had been right; maybe Tony brought out something – if not good – at least _human_ in Loki. Maybe there was something there that Steve couldn't see.

Maybe…

Maybe there were worse things, he decided as he watched the two of them. He drank to their health.

* * *

><p><strong>Footnote:<strong> And that's that. Thanks for reading!


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